


You've Got Mail!

by erebones



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Architects, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - You've Got Mail Fusion, Background Relationships, Cybersex, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Epistolary, F/F, M/M, Modern Thedas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:15:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5416628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alexius Architecture Co. comes to Kirkwall and puts Hawke and Sons out of business, Carver Hawke holds a serious grudge against his new coworker, Felix Alexius. Little does he know that the man he despises by day is the same man he's slowly falling in love with online each night...</p><p>A very cheesy Twelve Days of Satinalia fic. Happy holidays!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually go in for romcoms, but Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan steal my heart every time. Decided to do a holiday-themed twist with Felix and Carver, updated for a modern Thedas (with skype and IM and cybersex and all the delightful trimmings). I'll be posting one chapter a day for 12 days, from now until Christmas Eve. Hope you enjoy!

“Give him a chance, Carver.”

“Absolutely not.” Carver turns around purposefully, staring into the fireplace as he sips his mulled cider. He would have preferred something a little stronger, but Cullen's boyfriend is a recovering alcoholic, so he'll just have to suffer through. “You know what his bigwig corporation has done to our sales. I said hello over the punch bowl earlier and that's all he's going to get out of me.”

Cullen sighs and rubs the back of his neck in defeat. “You can't avoid him forever, you know. I really think you'd like him if you just tried having a conversation.”

Carver just scowls harder at his drink until Cullen finally gives up and goes back to dance attendance on his new fiancé. New as of this very party. It's terribly sentimental and cliché, but it's so very Cullen that he can't bring himself to be disdainful. Over by the knot of persistent well-wishers, he can hear Dorian's delighted chortle rise above the rest, echoed by another voice rising in dramatic illustration of some joke or other. He hunches his shoulders against the overwhelming wave of holiday cheer and wonders why he let Garrett talk him into coming.

“Hey there little brother. You look like you’re enjoying yourself.” Speak of the devil.

“Oh, I’m having a fantastic time,” Carver says sarcastically, allowing Garrett to edge in beside him. They’re both broad as houses, though Carver tops his older brother by a healthy five inches, so there’s an obligatory shuffle and shove back and forth before they’re both comfortably ensconced on the flagstone hearth. “I just love being forced to mingle with people I barely know, especially people who are threatening to put the family business _out of business_.”

“You mean Alexius? I chatted with him earlier, he’s not so bad. What?” Garrett sips innocently at his drink, and he’s close enough that Carver can smell the fiery spirits burning beneath the punch. Of course he brought his hip flask—or Varric did, more likely—because neither of them have any sense of shame.

Carver grumbles under his breath. “Not you, too. Cull was trying to get me to talk to him just now.”

“And why shouldn’t you? Oh, because he’s the big bad multimillionaire who’s going to destroy our hopes and dreams?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Carver snarks back. “Just, you know, the family legacy. No big deal.”

“I’ve been meaning to have a chat with you about that, actually,” Garrett says, switching flawlessly from jibing older brother to levelheaded business partner in the space of a breath. “I got a phone call from Gereon Alexius the other day and he wanted to meet.”

“You turned him down flat, I hope.”

“I agreed, actually. We got together for coffee this morning.”

Carver stares at him, aghast. “ _That_ was your ‘potential business connection?’ And you didn't think to invite me? We're _partners_ , Gare. Hawke and _Sons_.” He stresses the sibilant at the end of “sons,” perhaps a little louder than warranted, but the pop and snap of the fire prevents him being overheard.

Garrett is unrepentant. “What is Bethy, then, chopped liver?”

“Maker’s sake, that's not what I meant.” He’s still agog, refusing to believe Garrett actually sat down for a perfectly respectable _coffee_ with Gereon fucking Alexius, of all people. “Go on then, what did he want? To gloat?”

“He wants to buy Hawke and Sons.”

Carver grips his glass so hard he’s impressed it doesn’t instantly shatter into a zillion painful little pieces. “And you said no.”

“I’m not finished. He wants to liquidate our inventory—all the equipment, the drafting tables, the computers, everything—and hire us on as consultants.”

“And you said _no_. Right?”

Garrett stares very hard into the fire and doesn’t answer.

“Fucking _consultants_ , Gare? Are you serious? We run one of the most well-known and well-loved architecture firms in Kirkwall and we’re going to just throw in the towel and let the king of big-business construction _buy us out_?”

“It’s not a matter of _letting_ , Carver,” Garrett says, mouth pinched and tired. “You know the figures as well as I do. Alexius Architects are infamous from Minrathous to Denerim, they’ve got an extremely streamlined, user-friendly interface and we’ve been falling behind ever since they set up shop in Hightown. It could be worse, you know. They could just stick to bringing in all their own people, all their own designs, but Gereon said they’ve already started hiring local artisans for freelance work. At least this way we’d be on a steady payroll—making more than we do at our own company, I might add—and we’d still get to do all the stuff we normally would. Just under a different name.”

“Yeah, a different name. What’s so terrible about the old one?”

“Nothing, Carv.” Garrett meets his eyes, and Carver is forcibly reminded of how much pressure he’s been under since their incoming work took a nosedive last spring—about the same time that Alexius Architects moved into town and stole their business right out from under them. Garrett has aged more than those months should warrant, with grey coming in thickly at his temples and lines forming around his eyes where none had been before. Carver looks away from him as he presses on, guilt churning in his stomach. “There’s nothing wrong with the old name. But… maybe it’s time to retire it. We’ve had a good long run, don’t you think? We kept it alive after Mum and Dad died even when no one said we could.”

“And now you’re letting it go because some jumped-up empty suit masquerading as a businessman—”

There’s a soft throat-clearing, and Carver turns midsentence to find Felix Alexius standing there, a little pink in the face and holding his drink like a lifeline. His casual sport jacket likely cost more than Carver’s last paycheck. Whatever spiteful words he’d been about to say grow sour and die, and he swallows them back with effort.

“Excuse me. I’ll see you at home, Gare.”

With as much dignity as he can muster, Carver ducks away from the fireplace and heads for the front door. The party is still in full swing, so he won’t be missed for a while yet—he’ll just send a thank-you card to the Rutherford-Pavus household and call it good.

Fuck, he needs a drink.

* * *

Felix lets himself in to the Alexius estate at half-past ten, moving quietly so as not to disturb his father. Gereon is likely in his office, still, working late _again_ to go over the influx of paperwork still pouring in from the new satellite studio. The housekeeper, Birdie, is going over accounts in the kitchen when Felix sneaks in. She spares him a disapproving hum and a raised eyebrow, and he bends to kiss the top of her head as he makes for the fridge.

“Hullo Birdie. Good day?”

“It was a day,” she replies breezily, stabbing the screen of her ipad until she achieves the desired result. Felix decides not to ask. “Roast duck still left on the second shelf if you like, dearie. Don’t they feed you at these elegant soirees?”

“Ha! It was hardly a soiree—hardly elegant, either.” He finds the duck and peels off the top of the Tupperware container to eat it cold. “There were about fifty different kinds of cheese and not much else. I don’t know why they insist on using Theirin Catering all the time, even if he is a friend of Cull’s.”

“And you’re a friend of Dorian’s,” Birdie tsks over the top of her spectacles. “He knows you can’t have dairy.”

“There was fruit. But, y’know, it wasn’t _dinner_.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, luv.”

“Sorry.” He polishes off the roast duck and pours himself a tall glass of water, legs too restless to take a seat across the table from her. “Birdie, I feel I have made an enemy.”

This time she looks at him properly—whipping off her spectacles and setting down her ipad to stare at him incredulously. “ _You_? My sweet little boy has made an _enemy_? Dear Maker, I’d love to know how on earth you managed it.”

“So would I,” Felix says glumly. “Come to think of it, I know why. It’s the business.”

“The business?”

“The Alexius Architecture Company? AAC? You know, the new studio we put up in Hightown? Expanding our interests in the Free Marches?” Felix says, amused.

Birdie narrows her eyes. “Ahhhh, that business. I might have heard of it. But what does that have to do with this enemy of yours?”

Felix details everything between sips of water: the small rival firm _Hawke and Sons_ , his father’s interest in their local perspective, the high likelihood of absorbing them into their company. “The only roadblock is the younger son. There’s three of them, actually—Garrett runs the business, though his younger brother Carver is technically co-owner on paper, and then Carver and his twin sister Bethany do most of the design work. Garrett met with Dad this morning and seems open to the idea of working for AAC, but the brother… he was at the party tonight,” he explains. “I tried to initiate a conversation, but he obviously knew who I was, and he’s… not as forthcoming as Garrett. He was downright rude, actually. And I guess I don’t blame him.” He finally succumbs to Birdie’s coaxing and perches on the bench across from her, elbows splayed on the table. “I mean, we are sort of putting them out of business, and they’ve been here a long time. Their father founded the business more than forty years ago.”

“And the father is no longer in the picture, I take it,” Birdie suggests.

“Dead. Ten years ago, Dad said, which is when Garrett and Carver took over.”

Birdie slides her hand over his, wrinkled and bejeweled with rings and bangles, but still sturdy and comforting as ever. “My dear boy. You can’t win everyone over, you know. But give it time. I’m sure once the whole thing blows over and the Hawkes are happily ensconced at your little firm, you’ll become fast friends. Now. I have a few more things to go over and you, serrah, should go to bed. It’s much too far past your bedtime.”

“I’m almost thirty,” Felix complains, but it’s halfhearted. Birdie has always mothered him, in the absence of his own Mum, and even now her overprotective nature is comforting rather than smothering. He drains the last of his water and kisses her cheek. “G’night.”

“Good night, Felix. Sleep tight.”

Upstairs, he treads lightly past the closed office door where a light still gleams and the soft scritch of a pen can still be heard, and enters his own rooms. They’re still crisp and full of new-paint smell from the renovations, so he lights a beeswax candle and ensconces himself in his armchair before reaching for his laptop. Truthfully, this is what has kept his spirits up ever since he overheard Carver Hawke ragging on his father and the company: the promise of a late-night chat full of dry banter and underhanded encouragement. It’s not a hobby his father approves of, but it’s rapidly becoming a fixed point in his daily routine, especially since moving to Kirkwall where everything is strange and different. He opens his laptop and clicks on the chatroom shortcut sitting innocently on the taskbar at the bottom. The app springs open on the screen and a little series of blinking dots indicates the wifi is connecting him to the chatroom.

 _Welcome!_ says the little mascot, an animated fennec with oversized blue eyes and a tail roughly the size of its body. Felix holds his breath. _You’ve got mail!_ It’s dated from earlier this afternoon, about when Felix had been dragging himself through the liquor store after Dorian trying to track down “the perfect wine to pair with Alistair’s new star, the crumbly Orlesian bleu.” He clicks on the message to open it and starts to read.

_It’s weird. Everything feels like it’s sliding out of control, but as soon as I open this stupid little chatroom, all my worries slide away. They’re still waiting to pounce, of course, but for now I can revel in the peace of mind. I have you to thank for that, I think. What would I do without you? Anyway, I think something weird’s going on at work. My boss has been really fidgety today—I’m just waiting for him to drop some kind of bomb. We’ll see how that goes. Prepare to hear all about it, I guess, minus the incriminating details. Speaking of which, I want to know more about this project of yours. I know we agreed no personal information, but surely you can give me just a little bit more? I’m practically salivating to know whether you’re going to officially put yourself on the market for “swings both ways.” I’ve been in that club for a while now, so I’m always advocating for new members. Let me know what you decide, and obviously I’m here if you ever need someone to work things out with (not like that :)). I have a work thing tonight, but I’ll try and get on after. ttyl_

Just as Felix finishes reading the message, smiling foolishly to himself, the little grey bubble next to [birdofprey3]’s screenname turns green. He’s online! Perfect. Felix opens up a new IM thread and starts to type. **Soooo how was the work thing??**

The little dotted line shows up almost instantly, and the reply follows shortly after. _awful. the bomb was dropped._

**oh no! It was bad then?**

_yeah. and not at all what i was expecting, which made it worse._

Felix hesitates over the keyboard, but before he can compose an appropriately sympathetic reply, here it comes: _i think i’m losing my job_

**What??? You mean you’re getting fired?**

_not fired, per se. but close enough. rly pissed at my boss_

**Conflict of interest?**

_you could say that._

Felix sighs at the laptop, frustrated. They’d arrived at the decision early on to keep the details of their personal lives as vague as possible—it was just for the best, considering they had met in a chatroom exclusive to Kirkwall, and bustling though it was, it was still a fairly small city. It would be too easy to run into someone you knew, or someone who _knew_ someone you knew, and before you know it all his dirty laundry would be plastered on the front page of tomorrow’s _Gallows Report_. His father is friends with the editor-in-chief, but still. It pays to be cautious.

**I’m really sorry to hear that. Not the bomb you were hoping for.**

_ha. not by a long shot. but enough about me. you had a thing tonight too, right?_

**Ugh. Don’t remind me.**

_yours was bad, too? at least we’re in this together lol_

**I don’t think it was as dire as yours, but yes :)**

_if it wasn’t dire, what was it? boring? long? full of holiday cheer?_

**All of those things, honestly.** Felix gnaws on his lip before typing out the next message. **Do you not go in for Satinalia, then?**

 _nothing against it, honestly. just… not my favorite time of year._ The dotted line is still there, still typing. Felix waits. _my parents aren’t alive, so holidays are a bit lackluster_

 **I’m sorry,** Felix types sincerely. **I lost my Mum a few years ago, so I can sympathize**

 _thank you,_ comes the response a minute or so later. _I’m sorry about  your Mum. losing a parent is hard_

 **She was sick for a while, so it wasn’t really a surprise. but yeah.** Felix hesitates before pushing “send.” This is more raw and honest than they’ve ever been, and he’s been talking with [birdofprey3] for well over three month now—messages every day, to start, and now IMing almost every night with longer emails in between. He has no idea who this man is, where he lives or what he does. Just that he’s thirty-two, argues frequently with his boss, and has the unerring ability to make Felix laugh without even trying.

 _doesn’t mean it won’t hurt_ , comes the astute reply. Then, on its heels, _maker we’re grimsome tonight._

Felix laughs aloud. **“grimsome”?**

_full of grimness. idk. it’s a thing my Mum used to say when we were all hangdog about something._

**…“hangdog”?**

_lol! i forget you’re not from around here. Lots of weird sayings in Kirkwall. must be the ferelden influence still hanging around. to answer your question: hangdog means glum, depressed, sad. so. that took way too long just to say “we’re a pair of bloody whingers tonight”_

**I think we’re allowed to whinge now and again. but point taken. I believe you had a question in your last email that deserves an answer?**

_oh Andraste, let’s see if I can remember… oh! of course. the great sex debate_

**Hardly a “sex debate.” More like… coming to terms with things.**

_I know it well. have you decided yet, or still mulling?_

**I’ll probably always be mulling, honestly, but… yes. I think I’m attracted to men.** His hands shake a little as he types, and he realizes that this is the first time he’s said it out loud—so to speak—and not just in his own head. He rubs his face with his hands and keeps going. **No, I know I am. I’m attracted to men.**

The reply comes so quickly he knows [birdofprey3] must have already been typing before he sent his second message. _Congratulations. it’s a big step, admitting it to someone._ Then, half a second later, _welcome to the dark side_

**Thanks… I think :)**

_it’s pretty great, honestly. your dating pool just doubled._

Felix hesitates for only a moment before replying, **Are you seeing anyone?** Typed out in black and white, it looks so… flirty. But it’s too late to take it back, so he just sits and waits, hoping he hasn’t just made an enormous fool of himself.

_not at the moment. if i was, it would probably be pretty rocky—i’m not very good company at the moment._

**The job thing?**

_the job thing. and other stuff._

**Well I think you’re excellent company.** In for a penny, in for a pound.

_thanks, but you wouldn’t say that if we were speaking face to face. the internet protects you from my irritability._

**So that’s a ‘no’ to ever meeting in person?**

What follows is a very long wait. After a short while Felix realizes he’s holding his breath, and he releases it abruptly before sucking in a big gulp of it. The little dots appear. He’s typing.

_that escalated quickly haha_

**Sorry! Sorry, that was out of line. I do mean it, though, I enjoy your company. I hope we can keep chatting like this, I really look forward to it.**

_absolutely. nothing to be sorry for, i was just surprised. i don’t think i’m ready right now, if that makes sense, but i’m not opposed to the idea._

**Neither am I**

_I figured :)_

Felix sighs. He’s too tired to force his mind into the mental gymnastics required to keep from embarrassing himself. **Not to give off the wrong signal, but I’m exhausted. I think it’s time for me to turn in**

_no wrong signals here, i’m on board with that._

**Let me know how things go. With the job, I mean. If that’s all right.**

_will do. take care of yourself._

**you too :)**

With one click of the trackpad, Felix is logged out and offline. Well. That went… better than he expected. Smiling like a fool, he puts aside his laptop and goes to get ready for bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoy Felix/Carver and modern Thedas, you should definitely check out earlgreyer's AWESOME fic, [A Lawyer and an Architect Walk Into a Bar](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5265548)! She's been a great help to me while I fretted and freaked out over this fic, and her own spin on this ship inspired the architect angle for this one. Also it's very steamy and is about to get steamier, so run over and read it and subscribe!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Satinalia Day 2!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picture the Felix in this 'verse looking like Alfonso Herrera as [Hernando](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/70/46/9c/70469c09c7f69602561ed9da2b4f2218.jpg) in sense8.

“Garrett…”

“Well? You said we were partners, so. Partner. I do this with you or not at all.”

They stand on the pavement outside Alexius Architecture, the bitter winter winds whipping at their coattails. Carver’s hair has grown a little shaggy and it curls wildly in front of his eyes as he stares his brother down. “Are you sure about this? I mean _completely_ sure?”

Garrett sighs. “Not really. But I don’t see any other option. Do you?”

“Not really.” Carver digs his hands a little harder into his pockets and jerks his chin toward the glass double doors, through which the entire reception staff of AAC can no doubt see them waffling. “Come on, then. Let’s get this over with.”

The lobby of AAC is a far cry from Hawke and Sons’ antique brick walls and rustic floorboards. The entire building front is made of glass, letting in streams of cold grey light that pairs perfectly with the slate walls and cool marble floors. To the left is an elegant waiting area, complete with red leather chairs and a polished wooden bar stocked with all manner of coffee- and tea-making paraphernalia; to the right is a massive curved welcome desk with three receptionists hard at work. One of them Carver recognizes instantly, a school chum of Bethy’s who’s done some freelance work for them in the past. He strides ahead of Garrett’s professional gait and leans across the countertop.

“Hello there, Bela. Siding with the enemy, are we?”

“Hello yourself,” Isabela smirks, ignoring Garrett’s pained _Maker’s sake, Carver, not now_ as she draws the cap of her pen across burgundy lips. “Don’t take it personally, you know you Hawkes will always have my heart.”

“If it even exists,” Carver mutters under his breath.

“All right, that’s enough of that.” Garrett edges him out of the way and beams winningly at Isabela. “We’re here for a meeting with Alexius. We’re expected.”

“Hmm. Son or father?” Isabela queries, perfectly professional except for the wicked light dancing in her eyes.

“Ah, both, I believe.” Garrett scratches his beard.

Carver huffs and strides away to stand near—not sit in—one of the chairs in the waiting area. His skin is prickling with irritation and every sensation seems heightened, so when the elevator doors ding softly to admit a pair of neat, clicking footsteps to the lobby, he’s prepared. Garrett is already stepping forward to greet their host, so Carver reluctantly follows on his heels.

Felix Alexius is looking particularly dapper this afternoon, a more professional version of his put-together look at the Pavus-Rutherford engagement party: navy suit coat, darker navy slacks, and a crisp shirt and tie in coordinating colors. Carver’s eye is drawn unwillingly to his tiepin, a little silver anchor clip that reminds him instantly of Isabela. He wonders if there’s something going on there—that would take ‘siding with the enemy’ to an entirely new level.

“Garrett, good to see you again,” Alexius says, shaking hands with Garrett in a firm, no-nonsense sort of way.

“And you. Thanks for meeting with us. You might remember my brother and business partner, Carver?”

Alexius’ eyes turn to him. Behind his tortoiseshell glasses and the precise Tevinter-style cut of his beard, his face is as smooth as an Orlesian masque. “Yes, we met briefly.”

Carver contents himself with a slight nod and a perfunctory handshake.

“Welcome to the Alexius Architecture Company. If you’ll follow me, my father is waiting for us in his office.”

Garrett and Alexius— _Felix_ , Carve reminds himself; Alexius is his father—make small talk in the elevator, which Carver largely tunes out. It’s a very sleek elevator, with two glass sides that show the view over the harbor and the nicer-looking parts of Lowtown, and Carver spends some time viciously hating it to keep himself occupied. Then the doors open with a perfect glide and they are admitted directly into Alexius Senior’s office.

Carver is reluctantly impressed. Like the lobby downstairs, everything is chrome and slate, but the floors are reclaimed oak boards and there are a few brick partitions reminiscent of the building's old skeleton. There's a sleek polychrome desk in the middle of the room, but the real centerpiece is the sunken lounge area where their host is waiting for them: three steps down into a carpeted area looking over the city, it boasts two full-size couches in spotless white microfiber and a matching armchair, all arranged around a dark wooden coffee table with tea already laid out and waiting. Gereon Alexius is standing beside the table, a file folder tucked under his arm. He's dressed as crisply as his office would suggest, in a three-piece wool suit with pointed Tevinter-style lapels and a shiny golden tiepin. Carver hates him already.

“Messeres Hawke, welcome to AAC. We're very happy to have you.”

“Happy to be here,” Garrett says as they shake hands, and it's only their shared childhood that lets Carver know he's lying through this teeth. Absurdly, it calms him just a little bit. At least he’s not any happier than Carver is about this entire situation, even if he’s better at hiding it. “This is my brother, Carver.”

“Good to meet you, serrah,” Alexius says, and Carver tries not to grind his teeth too audibly. Damned snake-blooded Tevinter with his 4k suit and his sibilant accent trying to adopt the language of the locals. He refuses to be taken in by it. “Please, won't you sit? Do you take cream or sugar?”

“Neither,” they say at the exact same time. Garrett exchanges a glance with Carver, silently amused, and they take a seat on the couch. Even though Carver knows his suit is clean, if a bit shabby in comparison to the Alexiuses' understated wealth, he hopes he leaves a smudge or two of dirt behind. Alexius and his son sit on the couch opposite them and Carver commences tuning everything out.

He occupies himself, instead of listening, by taking in every detail that he can of the father and son sitting opposite them. Alexius Senior is clearly very experienced, decades ahead of Garrett and Carver, but he looks them both in the eye and doesn’t talk down to them. Carver grudgingly decides he’s not so terrible. Felix is another matter. He’s clearly new to the business, and tries to make up for it by being overly earnest in every way, hanging onto Garrett’s every word and refilling his tea when it runs dry. Kiss-arse. Carver counts three refills already, and another on the way if Felix’s trigger-happy hand inching toward the teapot is any indication. Garrett’s bladder must surely be complaining by now.

“…with Carver here. I was perusing his portfolio the other day and was quite impressed with his work.” Gereon’s flat grey eyes move to him, and Carver drags himself bodily into the conversation. “You used to do a lot of collaborative work with your sister, is that right?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Carver replies, biting off the _sir_ that wants to fall in at the end. “I’ve worked solo for a couple of years now, ever since she broke off to pursue  her own research.”

“Runecrafting for the home. Quite a new and ambitious field. Many of us are looking forward to the release of her first book on the subject.”

“We’re very proud of her,” Garrett interjects, smiling benignly. “But you were saying something about Carver and Felix…?”

Carver’s gut clenches. What did he miss?

“Ah, yes. I am, of course, grooming Felix to take over the business once I’m ready to retire—not for many years, Maker willing—but in the meantime he is quite a skilled architect and I would be eager to give him the chance to work with someone with your experience.” He’s looking at Carver again. Shit. Fuck.

“I don’t take apprentices,” Carver says automatically. He can almost hear Garrett wince.

Gereon’s calm smile is still firmly in place. “Of course not. I was suggesting more of a partnership, to be hammered out at your discretion.”

Carver’s eyes trawl to Felix. He’s sitting ramrod straight and perfectly blank-faced, Garrett’s tea forgotten. The angle of the sunlight makes it difficult to tell, but Carver could swear he’s turning pink beneath his collar—embarrassment, or anger?

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Garrett says into the yawning silence, impossibly cheerful. Carver whips his head around to look at him.

“What?”

“You did some of your best work when you had Bethy to bounce ideas off of,” Garrett says, returning Carver’s horrified stare patiently. “This could be an excellent opportunity to further your skills.”

“Of course if you’d prefer to work alone,” Felix interjects at last, sounding uncomfortable.

“No. It’s fine.” Carver stares into his tea. He realizes he has yet to take a sip. “You’ll have to forgive me if I seem reluctant—I’ve grown used to working alone, and I find I’m more proficient without a handler.”

Garrett clears his throat, distracting Carver from the look of hurt that flashes across Felix’s brow. “I’m sure you’ll get accustomed to it quickly, brother. You were always quite flexible in the workplace.”

“Good,” Alexius says, pleased. “Now that that’s settled, shall we get the paperwork out of the way?”

* * *

“Were you very rude?”

“No Bethy, I was not rude! I was taciturn. There’s a difference.”

“The difference is that one is socially acceptable by a very slim margin. Very well, you pass.” She grins at him, face pixelated through the shitty wifi connection. “And you survived intact. Congratulations. I told you it would be fine.”

“But it's not fine, Bethy. It's very far from fine.”

“Carver. Listen to me. I really think this is for the best. I know you guys have tried to protect me from it, but the company was already crumbling. You did a marvelous job keeping it going, but there just isn't a market for the kind of work we do anymore. Alexius' offer was Maker-sent.”

“We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that,” Carver says stiffly, trying not to feel betrayed. “It's moot, anyway. The papers are signed, everything is done and dusted. I start work on Monday.”

Bethy leans closer to her webcam in a blur of movement, eyebrows wiggling. “Soooo what are you gonna do your last free weekend? Talk to your online boyfriend?”

“Bethyyyy,” he groans. “Cut it out. He's not my boyfriend.”

“But you want him to be!” Bethy sings. “Come on, you talk to him all the time! You met in a gay chat room for Maker's sake.”

“We talk occasionally. A couple times a week. And we only got to talking because he was questioning his sexuality and wanted to talk to someone one-on-one without the pressure of sex.” He rubs his eyebrow, trying not to think of the email from [euclidean_playa] likely waiting in his inbox. “How's Orlais?”

“Nice non sequitur, Carv. It's fine. Orlesian. I'm learning a ton, though, so I can live with it.”

Carver lets her ramble on for a while, raving about the arcanist heading up their rune study course, and when they finally say goodnight it’s nearly 2 AM. He logs out of Skype and into the email client, wondering if he has any messages.

_You’ve got mail!_

He grins and opens the email.

**Hello! At this very moment I am sitting in my bedroom with a cup of tea and my cat on my lap; there might be a bit of something in my tea. It might be brandy. But I needed it after today, and it isn't a lot, just enough to take the edge off.**

**I wanted to tell you where I am and what I'm doing because it makes me seem more like a real person, don't you think? I mean, I am a real person.  That's sort of obvious, I hope. I meant more that it's so easy to lose sight of someone's personhood, especially behind a screen. I could be a robot for all you know. I'm not, but I could be, and then it wouldn't matter whether you were kind or cruel to me—I wouldn't be affected either way. Doesn't that sound nice? I think I'd like that. Being immune to cruelty. I don't think everyone means to be cruel, but it happens anyway even if they don't intend for it to happen. I wish I was good at deflecting that—I should be, I'm a businessman after all—but I'm not. I'm still a person. You believe that, don't you?**

**Your friend**

And then it stops, as if he'd kept himself from signing his real name. His username and the time stamp are at the bottom—he sent it an hour ago. He's probably asleep. Carver opens up the chat window just in case.

_hey. u ok?_

When there's no immediate reply—his online status is grey, which means he's inactive, not necessarily offline—Carver starts composing a longer email.

_Don't worry, you're a real person to me. At this moment I am hunched over my laptop like a wizened crone after talking to my sister on Skype for a couple hours, and my eyes are so dried out I can barely see. Also I've had to pee for the past twenty minutes but I'm too lazy to get up and go. How's that for personhood?_

_In all seriousness, I'm sorry someone's been treating you like shit (I assume that's where this is coming from). You absolutely don't deserve it. I know that sometimes people are cruel because they have problems going on in their own lives, but that shouldn't be an excuse. Have you tried retaliating? Nothing underhanded, just... standing up for yourself. Sorry, that sounds kind of mean, doesn't it. Anyway, I'm really good at comebacks, so if you want help just let me know._

The little circle next to [euclidean_playa]'s name turns green suddenly. Carver composes a quick farewell and sends the email before opening up the chat window just in time to get the incoming message.

**i'm fine :)) you?**

_no grammar or punctuation? I'm shocked_

**I might be tipsy. Didn't mean to lol**

**did u send me a mail??**

_Yeah :) you've got mail!_

**yes!! one secundo and I will read it**

Carver snickers to himself and leans back from the screen. Now would really be a good time to go to the loo, so he types a quick _afk_ and leaves the room. When he comes back, feeling loads better, there are ten new IMs.

**u are so sweet**

**don’t go afk!!!!!!!**

**oh your probably peeing. that’s good. i should do that**

**afk**

**just kidding i can hold it**

**do you really think i’m a peson?? i mean a good peson**

***person**

**i know we’ve only been talking for a few months but it feels like longer**

**thank you for your email. it means a lot**

**are you still peeing**

Carver snorts. _i’m back :) and yes i think you are a good person_

**do you really think i should fight back??**

_it’s up to you. you don’t really seem like the aggressive type tho_

**i’m not :( are you?? i wish I was.**

_it’s satisfying sometimes, I’ll admit. other times i just feel like a shit after, though, especially when i lose my temper_

**:(**

**do you have a bad temper?**

_not as much anymore. after our parents died it was rough. but it’s better now. mostly i’m grumpy, according to my sister_

**you seem nice enough to me!**

_i’m always nice to you. lol_

**well someone has to be!! i’m glad the someone is you**

Carver clears his throat and glances away from the screen briefly. Maker, whoever this man is he’s fucking adorable. When he looks back there’s a new IM waiting.

**sorry that was too much wasn’t it**

_no, it wasn’t too much. stop worying :)_

_*worrying_

**oh good. it’s just i know we met on a gay chatroom but that doesn’t mean we’re dff or whatever**

_*dtf. down to fuck. haha. and you’re right. it’s fine to just be friends to start out with. i could really use one of those_

**well here i am! *waves***

Carver laughs, then yawns. _*waves back*_ He’s not really sure what to say after that, so he just sits there, chin propped on one hand and his lids falling lower and lower as he stares at their meandering conversation marching across the screen like ungrammatical ants. After a bit the dotted line appears, and then [euclidean_playa] writes:

**it’s late, isn’t it? we should go to bed**

_it’s a weekend tomorrow, i don’t mind. but i’m pretty tired, yeah. talk later?_

**whenever! just message me! got a new phone so i got the chat app and we can talk whenever**

_nice :) maybe i will message you tomorrow then._

**ok!!!**

_drink some water and take an ibuprofen, k?_

**lol ok mom**

_*tucks you in*_ Carver rolls his eyes at himself even as he hits “send.” What is he, twelve?

**do i get a goodnight kiss?**

_so demanding. fine. *kiss*_

***kiss***

_go to sleep, you’re drink_

_*drunk_

**ha!!**

**good nigh t :)**

Carver sighs and closes his laptop. His apartment is quiet and dim, illuminated only by the glow of the woodstove at the foot of his bed. Downstairs he can hear Brinkley snoring on the couch, and the occasional whizz of traffic from the expressway a few blocks over. He pushes his laptop to the floor and rolls over, tugging the covers up around his shoulders, and he’s asleep almost before his head hits the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on their screennames: [birdofprey3] is obvious, I hope, and [euclidean_playa] is a play on the term Euclidean Plane, which is the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry. Felix is a math geek in every universe, even if I know nothing about math haha.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things between Felix and Carver come to a head (not the good kind), and Carver almost loses his job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for everyone's kind words so far! Hope your Decembers are treating you kindly. Here's day 3!

The weekend seems to fly by, and before Felix knows it he’s climbing into the elevator at AAC bound for the sixth floor. His palms are slightly sweaty, and he dries them on his wool slacks about five times before giving up and juggling his coffee and briefcase to avoid having to shake hands with anyone on the way up. Thankfully he’s fairly early, and the halls are deserted as he wends his way to his studio office—now his and Carver’s studio office. He sends a quick prayer to Andraste that it will be empty when he arrives. He could use a few minutes alone to compose himself.

Of course, Andraste must be busy with other matters, because when he walks into the room Carver is already there, bent over a drafting table laid out with the blueprints of Felix’s most recent personal project. Damn it.

“Good morning,” he says as brightly as he can manage—which, given his nerves, is about five times brighter than the situation requires.

Carver jerks upright and turns around, putting his hands in his pockets as if to emphasize his innocence. “Morning.”

When nothing else is forthcoming, Felix goes to his desk and pulls his laptop out of his briefcase to set it up. He keeps sneaking glances out of the corner of his eye, but Carver seems to be in no hurry to make conversation. Instead he peruses the room: the other desk that’s been set up for him, complete with a desktop and a little potted plant, probably courtesy of Isabela; the drafting tables with the reams of paper stacked neatly on the shelves; the floor-to-ceiling windows that let in plenty of watery winter light and provide a stunning view of Kirkwall’s new Chantry and reviving arts district. It’s this last that seems to really hold his attention—he drifts to the edge of the room and stands there looking out, hands still in his pockets, and Felix can see his reflection in the glass, cold and somewhat pensive. He swallows and looks back at his desk.

“Is that yours?”

Felix jumps. “Sorry?”

Carver is still looking out the window. “On the table there. The… living room?”

“Ah. Yes. I sometimes do little personal projects in my spare time. Nothing serious.”

“Is that your preference? Interior design?”

Felix leans back in his chair as if trying to lean away from the question. “I took a few classes in university. I work mostly in architecture that can coexist with prior magical structures, which I suspect is why my father suggested we work in… close quarters.” The office is hardly small, in all honesty—he suspects he could go whole days working in his corner and never exchange more than two words with Carver. With any luck, it will stay that way. “What’s your specialty, then?”

“You didn’t look at my portfolio?” Carver snarks. “Your father was certainly going on about it last week.”

“I… haven’t had a chance to look,” Felix says quietly, which is code for ‘I was too nervous about today to even spare two thoughts for you this weekend, so I avoided all mention of you whatsoever and have not touched your portfolio.’ “If you had anything in particular you wanted to show me I’d be happy to see it.”

“Well, let’s see. I can give you a little tour right here.” He waves a finger at Felix like he’s the wait staff at a restaurant that caters to rich assholes. Because he doesn’t know what else to do, Felix comes, standing a healthy couple of feet away. Carver doesn’t even look at him, just starts talking, his voice a chilly clip that feels like a hand pressing down on the back of Felix’s neck. “You can see the Chantry from here. It’s new; it was rebuilt after some insurrectionists blew it up in a terrorist attack ten years ago. I helped design the floor plan and my sister and I did most of the security runework ourselves. Just there is the Kirkwall Museum of the Arts. The building used to be the seat of power in Kirkwall until the war destroyed most of it. Garrett helped with the reconstruction and renovation into a place of learning and history; Bethy and I designed the mural out front commemorating the war and the events that led up to it. And if you were to visit half the businesses in that district, chances are you’d see our work there. Kirkwall was a mess after the war, but the Hawkes helped to rebuild it. So no, I don’t have a ‘specialty.’ When my brother and I took over the business, we had to learn fast. Interior design, runework, renovation, restoration, installation—I’ve done it all.” Carver turns to look at him finally, and Felix is hard pressed not to step back from the intensity of his gaze. “So you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit tired of the whole ‘big business comes to save the struggling city’ shtick. The city has already been saved. _We_ saved it. And your company is the one who’ll ride in on our coattails and take all the credit.”

Reeling, Felix slides his gaze out the window as Carver strides back to his half of the office. He supposes he deserved that.

* * *

This isn’t an office, Carver thinks irritably. It’s a fucking penthouse. He texts Garrett so and receives a reply a little while later: _told you it would be worth it lol._

_that wasn’t a compliment_ , Carver types back. He never receives a reply.

He knows he’s supposed to be brainstorming or something with Felix, but he’s not really sure where to start. After tearing the kid a new one over the issue of his “portfolio”—which he’s fairly sure doesn’t actually exist except in whatever bizarre background check Alexius performed on the family business—Felix hasn’t even dared to breathe in his direction, resulting in the longest and most quiet workday of his entire career.

At first, it’s restful. There’s no Bethy Skyping him at all hours to consult on the details of a commission, no Fenris skulking by to steal Garrett away for a lunch date, no interns spilling coffee and screwing up paperwork just when he’s in the thick of a project. He takes the opportunity to tie up some loose ends from his work under the _Hawke and Sons_ umbrella, and by the time lunch rolls around he’s got the paperwork out of the way and is bored stiff.

He walks to the Sabrae Café for lunch just to get away from the oppressive quiet, and takes a little longer coming back than strictly necessary. So when he runs into Gereon Alexius in the lobby, he can’t help but cringe inwardly just a bit—he’s used to a certain amount of flexibility in his day-to-day work, considering he owned half the business, but that isn’t how things work anymore, and if he gets told off for it it’s his own fault.

“Carver, I’m glad I caught you. I wondered if I could speak with you in my office, if you have a moment? I wanted to discuss the finer details of what you’ll be doing here, without your brother breathing down your neck.” He smiles, about as friendly as a snake. Carver bares his teeth in return.

“Certainly. Garrett does have a way of monopolizing the conversation, doesn’t he?”

Gereon waves him into the elevator and they ride up together in silence. It's slightly more awkward this time without Garrett to act as a buffer for Carver's natural irritability, and he breathes a quiet sigh of relief when the doors finally slide open and they walk into the office suite. Gereon gestures to his desk, where two white chairs are waiting on either side of it, metal and cold like this entire bloody building. Carver sits.

“What did you want to discuss?”

“I know this transition has been difficult for you,” Gereon says right away. Maker, this guy doesn't mess around. “Believe me, my only wish for your time at AAC is that you are comfortable and happy in your role here. With that in mind, I wanted to talk about Felix. It has come to my attention that you are less than pleased with this new partnership.” So, someone tattled to Daddy about Carver's outburst. Marvelous. “If there's anything I can do to smooth the process I would appreciate hearing it.”

Carver honestly has no clue what to say. Gereon is obviously rethinking the “let the bitter asshole work with my son” angle, but the nature of the contract means his hands are tied—to an extent. If Carver doesn't behave, he could find himself thrown out on his ear, contract or no contract. Alexius Architecture is big enough that even binding legalities are flexible. Then again, cutting ties before he gets too entrenched here might not be a bad idea—if Garrett and Bethy would ever forgive him for it.

“Time will work its magic,” he says at last, forcing his voice to stay even and unruffled. He's not as good at it as Garrett is. “I doubt I'll ever be fully comfortable here, but that's the nature of business, isn't it? Big corporations swallow up the small local competition and grind onward without even blinking, like a war machine chewing up everything in its path. Eventually the wreckage will reassert itself.”

Fuck, that was bold. Even Gereon seems to think so—his eyebrows are half a mile high, though the rest of his face is as blank as slate. “I'm sorry you feel that way. We at AAC feel it's our duty not to destroy the local culture of small business, but to enhance it.”

“And turn it into profit,” Carver interjects.

Gereon spreads his hands. “Well, yes. Is that not the 'nature of business?'“

And now he’s throwing his own words back at him. Carver abandons his attempts at professionalism and sits forward in his chair. Garrett is going to kill him when he hears about this. “Let's just speak plainly, Mr. Alexius. I'm upset—understandably—about the destruction of the family business my brother and I worked so hard to keep alive after the war. I will work for you and I'll work well, but I'm hard pressed to figure out what more you want from me. You want—what? For me to be your son's friend?”

Gereon's lips thin. “I may have had faint hopes of that nature, yes, but I see now they were misplaced. I'm not asking you to be his friend, Carver, only to respect him as you would any other coworker.” Definitely a tattle-tale as well as a wilting flower. Wonderful. “You are not so different from each other, you know. Felix is a talented architect, and I hope to promote him within a year or two to the Junior Head of the Interior Design department. All of this in spite of losing his mother a few years before. I understand your own loss was difficult for you—perhaps you will take that into account when dealing with my son professionally.”

“Mr. Alexius, with all due respect, you didn’t hire me to be a babysitter. You hired me to be an architect, and that’s what I’m going to do. If you need somebody to play nursemaid to Felix, hire someone else.”

The end of his sentence is met with deafening silence, punctuated by the slight hiss of the elevator doors sliding shut. He can tell who it is by the look on Gereon's face. Carver feels his ears and the back of his neck turning red as he stands and gives Gereon a short nod. “Have a pleasant afternoon.”

He almost avoids looking at Felix as he passes. At the last second, just as they draw abreast of each other, he makes the mistake of glancing askance at him, and he feels the weight of his expression like a slap in the face. Felix is pale, jaw clenched, brow crumpled and eyes averted to the floor as he clutches his file folder in a death grip. He looks like someone just told him his dog died. Carver exhales audibly through his nose and steps into the elevator. He needs an intervention.

* * *

Felix clears his throat into the silence as the elevator whirrs away. “What was that about, Dad?”

Gereon gives a pinched sigh. “I was hoping to smooth over the process of introducing Carver to our company, but I’m afraid I made things worse.”

Felix thinks of the text he sent to his father earlier, mentioning Carver’s outburst. “Is this because of my message? You thought you’d play a little knight in shining armor?” He’s shaking a bit, now, with excess adrenaline and with anger. He puts the file down on his father’s desk with a little more force than strictly necessary. “I know that I’m your son, but I’m also your employee. You can’t coddle me just because someone pulled my proverbial pigtail on the playground.”

“I’m afraid it’s more than that, my boy. Carver is surly by nature—every attempt at polite conversation seems to end in a loss of temper. I’m not entirely sure he’s a good fit for the company.”

“It’s a little late for second thoughts, isn’t it?” Felix asks, though he can’t help but feel a flicker of relief at the thought of having his big sunny office all to himself again, no more storm clouds brooding in the corner to darken his day.

Gereon stands and drifts to the coffee bar in the counter. “There are ways around it. If I felt that Carver was going to be a detriment to Alexius Architecture…”

“Dad. No.” Suddenly filled with righteous certainty, Felix strides across the room to join him, facing him down over the Keurig. “I don’t want you using your position to do me favors. Carver is harmless.” Mostly. “Don’t fight my battles for me, all right? Let me do this my way.”

“Your way?” Gereon echoes, a ghost of a smile on his face. “What way would that be?”

Felix huffs. “I’ll figure something out. Just… give Carver another chance, all right?”

Gereon sighs and examines his son’s face for a moment or two before conceding. “As stubborn as your mother. All right. I won’t sign the pink slip yet.”

Felix smiles, feeling absurdly as if he’s just won some sort of battle. “Thanks, Dad. I left the Dumar file on your desk, it’s prepped and ready to go.”

“Thank you, Felix. Stay and have a coffee with me?”

Felix chews briefly on his lower lip. The thought of returning to his office—where Carver is most certainly lurking, surly as a hibernating bear—is less than appealing. “D’you have any more of those butter biscuits from Sabrae?”

“A whole tin, in fact.”

“Deal.”

* * *

Carver takes the elevator down two floors and gets off bound for Garrett's office. The lucky sod has a sizable cubicle all to himself, with bay-facing windows and a potted fern brought over from the old Hawke and Sons office. And, of course, it's empty. Carver plunks himself down in the padded office chair and puts his feet up on the desk for a quick nap.

“Carv, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Carver jerks upright, only just avoiding knocking the desktop onto the floor. “Hey Gare. Long lunch?”

“Fen and I went somewhere nice to celebrate the upgrade.” Garrett's eyes narrow at the derisive snort this produces. “What's going on?”

Carver puts his feet on the floor and leans his elbows on his knees. “Is it possible for me to get fired on my first day?”

“Oh Maker. What happened?”

Carver gives him a quick rundown, providing all the gory details. At the end of it Garrett slumps against the desk and rubs his hands over his eyes. “Fucking Void. You and your big mouth.”

“It wouldn't be so bad though, right? If I was quietly let go, I could go off and do my own thing and you can carry on the proud family name in your shiny new office without me to drag you down.”

“It doesn't work like that,” Garrett sighs. “And what is this 'your own thing' you're talking about? If you haven't noticed, the only market for an architect around here is right where you're at.”

“I could teach,” Carver offers weakly.

“You hate teaching. You always avoided our interns like the Blight.”

“I could go somewhere else—Val Royeaux or Ferelden.”

“Until Bethy comes back and disowns me for letting you go.”

Carver groans. “Then I'll go flip burgers for a little while until I figure something out! Come on, Gare, this is stupid. You can't keep me here.”

“You signed the fucking contract, Carv. I don't need to “keep you” anywhere, your own signature is doing the work for me. And even if it doesn't, you're going to beg on your hands and knees for Gereon to give you a second chance—or is it a third, at this point?—because you can't afford to lose this job. And frankly, because our family name deserves more than what your temper tantrum is currently doing for it.”

Carver snaps his mouth shut and stands. “Fuck you.” And he storms out, not feeling better at all.

* * *

**Dear friend,**

**How are you? I hope you had a productive day. Mine was… sort of productive. Right now I’m trying not to think about work, and instead think about this delicious coffee I am drinking on the patio of my home. The tempering runes are really quite something. It feels as if it’s ready to snow when I step outside the door and into the street, but here I can sit high above the city and feel as warm as if I’m wrapped in a cloud. Obviously clouds are cold and wet, but those are minor details. I much prefer a rose-tinged view of life. It makes things more pleasant.**

**Speaking of pleasant things, or _un_ pleasant, rather, I have a bit of a problem. I don’t want to bother you too much, since it’s really a silly sort of thing that will probably sort itself out in time, but what if it doesn’t? Anyway, I’ll be on this evening if you wanted to chat—not just about my problem, but about anything in particular. :)**

**Your friend, e_p.**

Felix hits send and sets his laptop on the wrought-iron side table with a sigh. It’s earlier than their usual time, so he doesn’t expect a reply right away. Instead he returns his hands to his coffee mug and his thoughts—unwillingly—to Carver Hawke.

There has to be a solution that isn’t outright firing him. And he doesn’t want to do that to him, anyway, even if he did approve of his father’s underhanded methods. The man is clearly suffering after the loss of the family business, and Felix doesn’t begrudge him that. What he _does_ begrudge him is his method of dealing with that suffering, namely lashing out. At Felix. That part isn’t ideal.

His laptop makes a little pinging noise unexpectedly. A new message! He pulls it back into his lap, coffee cradled in one hand, and clicks on the little tab that reads [birdofprey3] _._

_what's this problem, then? surely an extra pair of ears can't hurt._

**It's a… work-related problem. There’s this coworker…**

_oh my god. was it love at first sight? will you lose your job if you pursue them? IS IT YOUR BOSS_

_sorry. that wasn't helpful was it_

Felix laughs aloud and sets his coffee aside to type more quickly. **Well it’s definitely not my boss haha. And it’s nothing so nice as love, at first sight or otherwise.**

_ah, it’s that type of problem. fire away, i’m listening :)_

**I shouldn’t give too many details; we’re both private people, aren’t we? So I’ll keep it brief.**

_as much or as little as you’re comfortable with sharing._

**Essentially, there’s a coworker of mine who has been talking about me behind my back. Saying unkind things. Nothing that will undermine my position, I don’t think, but I’m not one for drama and pettiness in the workplace, and I can’t avoid him.**

**I feel a bit like I’m writing an advice columnist! But I don’t know what else to do.**

The reply takes a little while in coming. A bit nervous that he’s overshared, Felix grips his coffee in both hands and takes a fortifying sip. Maybe he should have added a bit of something stronger after all. Before he can make up his mind whether to go hunt down some Kahlua or not, a new message pops up.

_there’s something my mum used to say a lot whenever I had trouble with bullies in school: kill them with kindness. be so fucking nice and polite that they can’t help but feel badly._

_that last part was paraphrased btw_

Felix smiles to himself, but it’s a faded smile. **I’m afraid that might make it worse.**

_well, all you can do is try! and other people will probably notice your overtures and commend you for it. and voila, a promotion! lol_

**Now you’re just talking out of your arse. ;)**

_i’m very good at that tbh_

_i’m sorry if i wasn’t more helpful—all i can say is, if you need someone beaten up, i’m your man._

**You’re good at that, are you?**

_i have some martial arts training. purely for self-defense only, of course_

**Of course :)**

There’s a lull in their banter and Felix finds his coffee again, smiling softly at the screen. Maker, what is he getting himself into? This guy could be a total creep for all he knows, and here he is developing a crush on him—on someone he’s never even seen! “Get a grip, Fee,” he tells himself, even though he knows it’s far too late for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of hint vaguely throughout the story at the events of the mage-templar war, which goes differently in "modern times," but I probably won't get too in-depth because it's not really the focus of this story. I would love to see a fic someday that explores what a modern thedas would look like during the war, though. And a modern inquisition! interesting...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> baby steps

_Kill him with kindness_ . Not a bad idea. Still, how to go about it? It takes Felix a whole night of wondering and a brisk morning walk to Sabrae Café before he comes up with something. Coffee. The number one drug of choice for the working man. Surely even Carver can’t be immune to its charms.

But what _sort_ of coffee? There are so many possible permutations, so many ways to get it horribly wrong. He hems and haws for a little while, mindful of the line of patrons tapping their toes behind him, before finally settling on a double of his usual order: tall soy latte, double espresso, "And something fancy in the foam, please."

Merrill blinks liquid hazel eyes at him. "What would you like? A leaf? A smiley?"

Felix winces at the thought of giving Carver a coffee with a smiley on top. "Um, anything but a smiley. I trust your judgement."

A few minutes later he picks up his coffees and pries the lids off to take a peak. One is his usual, a swirl with a tiny heart in the center. The other features a delicate lacy pattern with no particular imagery, just rippling shapes in a spiraling circle like the center of a conch shell. Felix smiles to himself and replaces the lid, hoping the design will be intact when he reaches the office.

Luckily AAC is just around the corner. He waves hello to Isabela as he enters, trying his best to juggle the cups and his briefcase without dropping anything, and by the time he gets to the elevator he’s out of breath and a little hot under the collar. Just as the doors slide closed he sees Carver and Garrett walking through the lobby doors—thankfully emptyhanded. Felix breathes a sigh of relief and leans against the glass wall as he’s carried up to his office.

When he arrives he’s in a flurry—briefcase down, don’t spill the coffee, whose is whose?—and he sets one down on his desk and the other on Carver’s before darting back to his own area. By the time Carver walks in a few minutes later, he’s nose-deep in his email and finally prying the lid off his travel cup, not looking at all like he was just on a mad dash around the office trying to get everything in order. He looks down at his latte and his heart sinks as he recognizes the lacy pattern on top, only slightly smudged by its journey from the café. He gave Carver the wrong one—the one with the heart inside. Void damn it.

Carver is staring at the cup on his desk. Maybe he won’t open it. “What’s this?”

Felix takes a steadying breath. “It’s a peace offering. I know you don’t like me, and I can’t pretend I like _you_ all that much, either, but we can at least be civil toward one another. Can't we?”

Carver hums in what might be a vague sort of agreement and pops open the lid. Felix buries his face in his own cup, watching from over the top of his computer. Dear Maker let him not say anything. Carver sniffs delicately at the cup and makes a sound of surprise. “How did you know I was lactose intolerant?”

“You are?” Felix blurts. “I mean—I didn’t know, actually, I just ordered two of what I usually get. I’m lactose intolerant, too.”

“Oh.” Carver says nothing for a little while, just settles down at his desk and takes a few sips of the latte. At least he’s drinking it. Felix will count that as a victory.

He’s closing out of his email half an hour later and rising to do some freehand work at the drafting table when Carver clears his throat meaningfully. “Next time make it a caramel macchiato,” he says, as if he can't believe this actually happened and he doubts it ever will again.

Felix is determined to prove him wrong.

* * *

“So he takes his tea black, but he drinks caramel macchiatos?”

“Oh, yes. You should have asked me, I could have told you what Carver likes,” Merrill informs him, tucking her hair delicately behind one pointed ear. “He's very strange in his tastes.”

Felix sighs and leans against the counter. “Yes, so I'm beginning to discover.”

“But this explains why I haven’t seen him for the past few days,” Merrill muses. She snaps on some plastic gloves and begins assembling his sandwich, not at all harried by the ebb and flow of customers and baristas moving around them. She’s always so calm and purposeful in her work, a trait Felix appreciates very much. “He came in for lunch on Monday looking like thunder and I haven’t seen him since. No wonder, if you’ve been bringing him coffee.”

“It doesn’t seem to matter,” Felix says glumly. “I don’t think he likes me very much.” He wonders if ordering a second sandwich for Carver would be too much, and decides to save it for next week. He doesn’t want to overwhelm the poor man.

“What makes you say that?”

“He never speaks to me unless he has to. He hasn’t said thank you for the coffees yet. And he told my father he didn’t join the company to ‘babysit’ me—among other things. He’s been quite vocal in his dislike of me.”

“Of you, or of the company?” Merrill asks. She tucks the sandwich into a bit of wax paper and drags a razor-sharp knife through the middle at an angle before sliding the whole thing into a slim paper bag. “He’s had a rough time of it, these past few months. I’m not surprised he’s upset. And I don’t think he dislikes you, Felix, it’s just that he’s sometimes difficult to get along with, at first. He’s a very private person.” She passes him the bag and puts her hand over his, smiling earnestly. “Give him time. Time and coffee—two cures for any ill.”

“Thanks, Merrill.” He squeezes her hand briefly. “I’ll try and be patient.”

* * *

“Long story short, what the hell do I do?”

A crackling sigh comes down the line, and Carver tries to angle his ear away from the phone without dropping it from where it's wedged between his shoulder and his jaw. “You’re telling me this big bad asshole is actually being super nice to you and it’s throwing you for a loop?”

“At first I thought he was just a kiss-arse,” Carver says, slicing briskly away at the onion balanced on his cutting board. “But he _keeps doing it_ , even when I barely react. Coffee every morning, exactly what I like—and he goes to Sabrae, so Merrill must be in on it somehow—but I can’t figure out whether he’s lying about the lactose thing.”

“He could have asked Merrill,” Bethany offers. She sounds only half-interested, as if she’s humoring him on this whole thing, but he doesn’t mind. At least she won’t openly mock him for it, like Garrett would. “You’re the one who’s been working with this guy for a week, you tell me. Is he the type to do his research, or was it just a lucky guess?”

“I honestly don’t know.” He scrapes the diced onion in the pan and steps back from the cacophony of sizzling as it hits the hot butter in a waft of fragrant steam. “I asked Isabela if he was really lactose intolerant, and she just told me to stop being creepy and figure it out for myself.”

Beth chortles in his ear. Loudly. He winces and goes to wash his hands. “Why would he lie to you about something like that? The more I hear about this Felix the more I’m starting to think he’s actually an adorable sweetheart.”

“Or maybe that’s just what he _wants_ you to think,” Carver says darkly.

“Okay, now you’re starting to sound paranoid. Here’s my theory: none of this is as complicated as you’re making it out to be. Felix is just a regular guy trying to get along with his coworker, who is a grumpy sourpuss and refuses to carry on a normal conversation with him so he’s forced to stoop to gifts of caffeine and sugar. With me so far?”

Carver sighs and stretches out his neck as he retrieves his phone from his shoulder. “Yeah, okay. Fine.”

“Which means the only real option you have is to start being nice back.”

He sputters a protest and throws himself on the couch. “What? _How_?”

“I would suggest flowers on his desk, but considering how much of a jerk you’ve been to him, he might suspect foul play. Plus he might be allergic to pollen—you know you allergic types, always wilting at the slightest hint of a spring breeze.”

“Fuck off. Bloody annoying twins with no debilitating allergies whatsoever.”

She giggles, unrepentant. “Okay, so no flowers. And not coffee, because he obviously already gets his caffeine fix first thing in the morning and also that’s just copying. You need something original.”

Carver sighs. “Like what.” Brinkley pads over, interested now that his master is flat on his back on the couch, and puts his huge brick of a head down on Carver’s chest. “Brinkley says hello by the way.”

“Oh!! Brinkley baby! How is he?”

“Getting fat.” Carver smirks at the reproachful look their mabari gives him. “He’s getting his winter coat.”

“That’s right, it’s only two weeks until Satinalia starts. Oh! You could get Felix little gifts! One each day of the week, like Isabela says they do in Antiva.”

“Felix is from Tevinter, Bethy. I don’t think they do that there.”

“Then find out what else they do. It doesn’t have to be gifts, just start… being nice. Or less mean, anyway.”

“You’re asking a lot of me, Bethy,” Carver says with a longsuffering sigh. Brinkley sighs back and he succumbs, scratching him behind his ear. “At this point the poor guy just might keel over from shock if I say so much as ‘thank you.’”

“Well, start with that,” Bethany says, sounding amused. “Anything else, or can I tell you my exciting news now?”

“What? You have exciting news? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were busy wringing your hands over Felix Alexius. Is he cute at least? That would make all this drama somewhat worth it.”

Carver sighs. “I’m not answering that question.”

“That means yes, doesn’t it.”

“Have you forgotten about my online boyfriend so quickly? I’m injured.”

She blows a raspberry at him, which sounds more like a point-blank drumroll through the phone. “Now that you’re calling him that I _know_ there’s nothing going on, Mr. Contradictory. So. My news: Dagna has just offered me a teaching position at the University of Orlais, on the condition that I complete my magical studies there first. Apparently they prefer to hand out teaching positions to graduates, and she says I’ll have a better chance of being accepted if I finish my degree in Force Magic.”

Carver has a sudden and very vivid flashback of being thrown against the wall of their living room in Ferelden whenever Bethany lost her temper. “I thought you didn’t want to finish your magical training. You said it wasn’t going to be helpful in the pursuit of your chosen career.”

“I know, that’s why I’m hesitating. Force Magic is what I’m best at, but after the war I… well. My training was good, but learning spells on the fly while your city goes to shit isn’t really something I can put on my resume. And up ’til now I didn’t _want_ it on my resume, but if it can help me get into the University of Orlais… Don’t even start with that face.”

“What face?” Carver demands, hastily adjusting his expression even though she can’t see him.

“The face you make whenever I talk about how much I love it here. Orlesian-ness and all.” She sighs. “And there’s Isabela, of course.”

“Have you told her?”

“No, you’re the first one I called. Do you think I should?”

Carver gnaws his lip. “Are you still ‘together?’ I forget.”

“We’re supposedly ‘taking a break,’ because long-distance relationships freak her out. Given what happened the last time, I don’t blame her. We still talk every night, though, and we’ve had phone sex about five times, so it’s kind of hard to tell the difference.”

“Oh my _fucking_ Maker, Bethy, I do not need to know these things!”

Startled by his outburst, Brinkley barks and jumps upright, doing a lap around the futon before coming back to stare at him. In his ear, Beth is giggling. “Sorry. You’re right, I should call her. Obviously if I get the job at Kirkwall University it won’t be a problem, but that’s not a guarantee. And I’m going to have to give Dagna an answer soon.” A little of the excitement goes out of her voice. “It’s a dream come true, but at the same time I’m… not ready to leave Kirkwall behind completely. Not yet.”

Carver rubs his face with his free hand. “Well you don’t need to decide yet. Sleep on it. Call Isabela, see what she thinks. Talk to Gare, obviously. He’ll be pissed you called me first. Hah.”

“You’re my twin,” Bethany sniffs, as if it’s a foregone conclusion. “I don’t care how smart and business-minded he is, I always call you first.” She sighs. “All right. I’ll let you go. Say hello to your online boyfriend for me, yeah? What’s his name again?”

“Uh… euclidean_playa,” Carver mutters reluctantly. It’s such a stupid name, but it had made him laugh when he first saw it, which is probably what led to their bizarre online friendship in the first place.

“Maker, that’s terrible.”

“I know.”

“You’re perfect for each other.”

“Shut _up_.”

She giggles. “Okay big bro, good night. Skype tomorrow? I’ll tell you what I decide.”

“Sounds good, Bethy. Talk to you later.” He hangs up and throws his phone on the end of the futon. Brinkley immediately lunges for it, and he has to coax him away with a few gentle kicks to his rock-hard sternum. “Back! Back, boy, that’s not food.” Speaking of food, his onions are probably burning. He jogs into the kitchen and stirs them up hurriedly—only a little over-browned, thank goodness. He dumps in the rest of the vegetables and puts on a pot of water for rice. Is it too early to get online? Probably, but why the fuck not.

* * *

Felix bypasses the kitchen with a quick _hello_ thrown over his shoulder to Birdie and mounts the stairs two at a time. His phone died at work and he has _got_ to get online and tell [birdofprey3] what happened at work today. Of course he’s not online right now, so he sets up his laptop on his desk and starts typing.

**Dear friend,**

**You will never guess what happened today! I actually got some acknowledgement from my monster coworker that he’s been treating me like shit! I’ve been doing what you said, or trying to, and for a while I wasn’t sure if it was working. He seemed more startled than anything—and why shouldn’t I be? He knew perfectly well he was being cruel, and here I was turning the other cheek. So it went on like this for a while, he was confused and kind of thrown off his game, and TODAY he actually said “thank you” for a small favor I did him! Can you believe it?**

**I wanted to tell you immediately but there were some technical difficulties. Maybe it’s silly of me to be so excited, but a breakthrough of any kind is a miracle at this point. And it’s all because of you! I hope you’re on later, I want to hear more about the adventures of your dog Brinkley. The last email you sent barely scratched the surface!**

**Your friend,**

**e_p**

Message delivered, he sits back in his chair and sighs. It’s early still, and he really is quite hungry since he worked over lunch with just a sandwich to keep him going, so he has a quick shower and heads downstairs to pick a few tidbits out of the fridge. Birdie swats him away from her cookie batter, eventually, so he wanders back upstairs with a full belly and half his mind occupied with Carver bloody Hawke.

He’d said _thank you_. And more than that, he’d offered to fetch lunch for both of them the next day. Felix had been too stunned to do anything but nod, but Carver had seemed to accept it—he’d seemed relieved, actually, that Felix wasn’t making a big deal of it. So Felix hadn’t. Just smiled and nodded and gone back to his work as if they’d never spoken at all.

He bounds into his room and scoops Priscilla off the bed where she was lounging. She makes an irritated noise of complaint, but when he snuggles her under his chin she doesn’t try to get away. “Good kitty. C’mere, let’s see if I have any new messages.” He opens the chat client.

_You’ve got mail!_

_Hey,_

_That’s great news! I’m so happy to hear that. I will be on later to hear it in more detail, but at the moment I have to walk Brinkley—yes, I have plenty of stories about him if you want to hear them lol. Hopefully I won’t keep you waiting long._

_bp3_

Well that’s slightly disappointing, but he can live with it. To occupy himself, he checks his regular email and plays a few rounds of solitaire on his phone with Priscilla nestled happily on his chest. He’s just starting to doze off when his computer pings softly. He scrambles upright, dumping an unhappy Priscilla onto the duvet, and grabs his laptop.

_u online?_

Felix is already smiling. **Hello! How is Brinkley?**

_brinks is fantastic. he very much enjoyed his walk in the driving snow haha_

**Wait, what? It’s snowing??**

_go see :)_

He hops off the bed and walks with his laptop cradled in the crook of his elbow to the window. Outside, fat white flakes are lashing against the window, and they’ve already coated the ground below in an even dusting of white.

 **oh my god** , he types with one hand, still staring out the window. **i’ve never seen snow before**

_wait you haven’t????_

**i’m from the north, we don’t really get snow there**

Reluctantly he peels away from the window and goes to sit at his desk, where he still has an excellent view of the snow sprinkling all of the Kirkwall in a cleansing layer of white. **You must be very used to snow.**

_we don’t get as much here as I’m used to—I grew up in the south. But this is pretty stuff, a lot nicer to drive through than a blizzard._

**This isn’t a blizzard??**

_ha! you’re cute. no, this is a flurry. but I hear we might be in for a few more inches early next week._

**Just in time for Satinalia.**

_right :) you doing anything special?_

**Probably dinner the last night. Every other night will be business as usual, I think. My Dad isn’t super invested in the holiday season.**

_sounds about right for me, too._

Felix takes a breath. He has a sudden vision of walking hand-in-hand with this man, whoever he is, with snow drifting down into their hair and his glasses fogging whenever they stop to kiss beneath the Satinalia lights. He gathers his courage.

**Maybe we could meet up. Do something for the holidays, just us.**

He holds his breath. The subject of meeting has come up a few times over the course of the past few months, most recently a handful of weeks ago, and [birdofprey3] has slowly warmed up to the idea, but he’s never outright asked before. This is about as bold as he can get.

The little green circle next to his screenname suddenly goes red. Offline. Felix lets out a little gasp of disappointed surprise and covers his mouth, embarrassed. “Well done, Fee, you scared him off,” he chastises himself. He blinks hard and looks out the window. He’s not disappointed. He isn’t.

He is. Dammit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is obviously pretty lighthearted since they're both lactose intolerant instead of slowly being poisoned to death by the taint. :P Hope you guys enjoyed! Looking forward to a slightly smuttier chapter tomorrow....


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> starting to earn the explicit rating with this one ;)

Carver is leaning his chin on his hand, waiting with a small smile for the dotted line [euclidean_playa] is typing to resolve itself into a message, when his phone suddenly buzzes against his thigh. He jumps a little and drags it out of his pocket, but the caller ID gives him pause.

“Bethy?” he says, sitting up straight at his desk. “What’s going on?”

They’d decided, back when Beth first learned she had been accepted on the trip to Orlais, that they wouldn’t spring for international cell coverage. They could Skype and email one another at all hours of the day for free, so it didn’t make sense to pay extra. But if she was calling out of the blue like this, something had to be wrong.

“Oh my god, Carv. I just got an email from Kirkwall U, they want me! Full time, with benefits, as a junior member of their Rune Studies Department!”

Carver’s mouth drops open. “What the _fuck_?”

“I know!” she shrieks. “But oh, Maker, what am I going to tell Dagna? The University of _Orlais_ , Carver. It’s the most prestigious magical institution in Thedas south of Tevinter, teaching there would set me up for life! I would never have to adjunct another shitty community college class again!”

Carver closes his laptop without looking at it, entirely detached from whatever he’d been doing before she called. “Maker’s balls, Bethy. When does Dagna want to know by?”

“The end of the course,” Bethy says, sounding muffled.

“So, Thursday.”

“Thursday. Well, technically tomorrow, but she wants to know before I catch my flight, because if I _do_ decide to go with Orlais, she says she wants to take me on as an assistant instructor right away for the second half of the course.”

Carver rubs his face with his hand, groaning. “You haven’t called anyone else?”

“I texted Isabela. I know we should be Skyping, this call is probably costing a million sovereigns, but I needed to talk to you _right now_.”

“Okay, hang on. Let me think. Pros and cons, Bethy, list them out for me.”

“Okay. Whew. Pros of staying in Kirkwall. Are you writing them down?”

“Yep.” He scrabbles around in his desk drawer, loose paper crinkling noisily, and produces a utility bill with some space on the back and a stub of red pencil. “Fire away.”

* * *

Felix comes in a little early the next day, laden with coffee and donuts for the reception staff, only to find a strange young woman leaning over the counter chatting up Isabela. He hesitates just a beat before walking over. He’s not surprised, necessarily—Isabela flirts with everyone, it’s like a natural reflex that he’s grown used to—but there’s something about the girl that seems familiar. He scans her as he rounds the counter from behind, but nothing in particular jumps out at him: dark hair and pale skin, like many southerners, classic red lips that match the smart wool pea coat she’s wearing, and a tinkling laugh that does little to identify her. He drops off coffee with Rue and Saemus before making his way to Isabela.

“I come bearing gifts,” he says, sliding her share of coffee and donuts onto her workspace.

“You darling!” Isabela exclaims. “You see, Beth, we’re treated like royalty here. It’s fabulous. This is Felix Alexius, heir apparent, by the way.”

Beth smiles at him, eyes startlingly blue, and reaches across the counter to shake his hand. “It’s so nice to finally meet you! I’ve heard wonderful things.”

“Er,” says Felix, not quite sure what to make of that, “thank you?”

Both women laugh. “Isabela has told me plenty, of course, but I get the real inside scoop from my brothers. I’m sorry, I didn’t really introduce myself properly, did I? I’m Bethany Hawke, Carver’s twin.”

It’s suddenly entirely obvious—the snub nose, the Cupid’s bow, the hair and eyes are all Carver. Not that’s he’s ever seen Carver smile like that. And hang on, she’s heard good things? From _Carver?_

“I… it’s good to meet you,” he stammers, trying to ignore the flush coming over his face. “I thought you were in Orlais?”

“I was. The study course I was on is taking a break for the holidays, Satinalia though the New Year, so I came home to be with my family.” She slides fond eyes toward Isabela and receives a wink in return. “It’s a bit of a surprise, though, so don’t spill the beans!”

As if on cue, the front doors swing open and the brothers Hawke walk in, shoulder to shoulder and deep in conversation. Carver is the first one to look ’round and realize Bethany is standing there, beaming and pink-cheeked and pleased with herself. In an instant his dour mien melts away, and in its place comes a shockingly earnest, joyful expression that completely transforms his features. Taken aback by the change, Felix watches in something of a daze as Carver rockets across the lobby with a tremendous shout—“BETHY!!”—and scoops his twin sister up in his arms. She’s quite slight in comparison, and he lifts he without a trace of effort, swinging her around in a circle before settling her gently back on her own two feet.

“Maker’s balls, Bethy, what are you doing here?” he exclaims, heedless of the small audience.

“Surprise!” she exclaims, laughing and reaching up to pat his cheeks. “Happy Satinalia. Hello, Gare.” She accepts a hug from Garrett, too, though it’s not quite so boisterous.

“How on earth did you slip in under our noses?” Garrett demands.

“Thank Isabela.” Bethany turns and indicates her girlfriend, who’s beaming with the satisfaction of a job well done. Carver’s eyes snag on Felix as he looks their way, and hesitate before moving on. Felix shivers a bit at the intensity of his gaze and begins to drift back, separating himself from the hubbub of reunion.

“Wait a minute,” Carver is saying. “We were just on the phone last night, how did you get here so quickly?”

“Overnight flight, I landed half an hour ago. I told Dagna she’s going to have to wait ’til after the holidays for my final answer. For now I want to spend the rest of this year with all of you.”

As Felix slips away and makes for the lifts, he checks his phone for the fifth time that morning, studiously avoiding the chat app sitting heavily in the bottom corner of the screen. He refuses to check it—it’ll just be as blank as it was twenty minutes ago when he was in line at Sabrae. He sighs and tries to put the failed conversation out of his mind. He’s already decided not to look at it again until after work, at which point he will hopefully have some kind of solution.

Of course, he breaks by lunch. With Carver out of the office on his break to spend time with his siblings, he feels safe enough to open the email client and type out a short paragraph before he loses his nerve.

**I’ve been thinking about you today, and about what I said last night, and I can’t think of any other explanation for your sudden disappearance except that I came on too strongly and scared you off. If that’s the case, I apologize. I didn’t mean to alarm you, and I am perfectly happy continuing as we are. Please write back at let me know, because I’m quite anxious thinking that I’ve done something to offend you.**

**Ever your friend, e_p**

He’s only just sent it when Carver returns, loose-limbed and smiling. He stops short when he sees Felix still in the office, the remains of a half-picked-at lunch scattered across his desk. “Thought you’d gone out.”

“Not today,” he answers, giving a wan smile. He gathers his leftovers and organizes them in his lunch bag, each container sitting neatly next to the other, and slides the whole thing into his desk drawer to take home later. When he rights himself, Carver is still there watching him. “Can I help you?” he asks. It comes out a little more sharply than he intended, and Carver flushes a bit as he looks away.

“I had a few ideas this morning about the Thibault residence, I wondered if you wanted to go over the blueprints again.”

Felix is stunned silent. Most of their “collaboration” thus far has been through email, in spite of the shared office space, and sticky-notes left on the drafting tables at strategic points. Rarely does he ever feel comfortable enough to initiate a conversation out of the blue, and Carver is, as his father said, naturally taciturn—though Felix has come to interpret that more as “introverted” and not necessarily “rude”—and thus their day-to-day interactions are fairly sparse. Still, he collects himself after only a few moments too long, and pushes back from his desk.

“Certainly. Let me just grab my notepad.”

* * *

When Felix gets home, he puts it off for as long as possible before finally checking the app. There’s no new IMs, but _you’ve got mail!_ sings out anyway, with a solid, terrifying [1] next to the inbox icon. With bated breath, he taps the folder.

_hello,_

_I’m really really REALLY sorry for leaving you hanging last night. I didn’t even seen your message until this morning—there was an unexpected family emergency of sorts, and then I passed out immediately because I was up until the small hours talking my sister out of making stupid life decisions. I realized halfway through today that me going offline just as you asked that probably sent the wrong message, and for that I apologize. I didn’t mean to worry you._

_The answer is yes. I would love to meet. I’ve been putting it off partly because I’m nervous—who wouldn’t be?—and partly because I’m a bit of a pessimist, especially when it comes to romance. But certain recent events, especially pertaining to my sister, have made me reconsider my stance. We’ve been talking for months. I like you, a lot. You like me. Why shouldn’t we get together and see if we could be friends in real life, too? Or more than friends? Seize life by the horns, and all that (hopefully you’re not a qunari, because I understand they find that term offensive. If so, I apologize)._

_yours, bp3_

Holy Maker. A whole day of worrying for nothing. His hands shake as he thumbs open the IM chat bar with the little green circle. [birdofprey3] is online.

**I’m not a qunari :)**

The little dotted line pops up almost immediately, indicating the reply being written, and then the message arrives shortly after. _good to know. not that I have a problem with that._

**Even after the war?**

_I was here for it. the qunari were only a small piece of what went wrong, and I have no problem with them as individuals. their ideology I’m not so sure about, but I wouldn’t mind dating a Vashoth. not that that’s going to be an issue here._

A dating reference. Sweet Andraste, he’s apparently decided to go all in or nothing. **I don’t think it will be an issue, either :)**

_good. I don’t know if you already had an idea for where we should meet, but if you don’t I had a thought._

**Sure. I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.**

_you know the art and history museum here in the city? there’s a nice café just inside, maybe we could have coffee and take a stroll through. if art is your thing_

**That sounds delightful :) How will I know it’s you?**

_hmm. let’s see… how about I wear all black—black button down, black jeans—and put a red handkerchief in my front pocket. that’s not too cheesy, is it?_

**Better than showing up with a rose inside a romance novel or something.**

_ugh, I would never!_

Felix laughs and considers his next question carefully. **Do you mind if I ask what you look like?**

_i don’t mind at all_

He sighs. **Really?**

_really really ;)_

**What do you look like?**

_like a god, obviously. isn’t that what every man on the internet believes?_

**very funny**

_all right, all right. I’m tall and solid. muscular, ish, but only because I inherited it, I don’t like to go to the gym. walking or running with Brinkley is the only real exercise I get_

_hope that doesn’t put you off, haha_

**not at all. I’m listening :)**

_oh, you want more? greedy boy_

Felix inhales sharply. There’s an interested twinge somewhere below his waist, but he tries to ignore it for now. **i’ll tell you about mine if you tell me about yours**

_are we talking cocks here, or just in general_

He snorts. **yes.**

_very funny. ok. i have a monster cock, obviously, and it’s always throbbing and ready to go. also when i flex, nearby women faint. how’s that?_

**sorry, you lost me**

_i guess i deserved that. all right. I’m pretty pale, dark hair, freckles. not a lot of body hair. fantastic hipbones, if I do say so myself, and I guess I’m pretty average in the nethers department. I’ve been told I have a nice ass. now you :)_

**I’m average height, medium-tan skin, dark hair. I have a beard, but I keep it nicely trimmed, no scraggly ends**

_good. I can’t stand to kiss lumberjacks._

**would you kiss me?**

_as often as you like. I bet you have the sweetest mouth_

Felix closes his eyes briefly, and lets his fingers stray to his mouth. His lips are parted, dry from all the deep breathing he’s been doing for the past few minutes, and he suddenly wishes very much that his fingers weren’t fingers at all, but were instead another mouth, warm and firm against his. **I don’t know if it’s sweet, exactly, but it wants you. very much.**

_hmmm. I like the sound of that. you’ve never sucked cock before, have you_

It’s not really a question, but he answers it anyway. **No.**

_that’s okay. I have. and frankly I would love to suck yours_

Felix surprises himself with an audible moan. He snaps his mouth shut and glances at the door. It’s quite late, now, nearing eleven, but his father might still be in his office. He needs to be careful. He wriggles down in the bed and lays on his side so he can muffle any untoward noises in the pillow. His phone sits close to his face like this, and with his free hand he grips his thigh and lets the firm hold sizzle through his veins.

**I don’t know how long I would be able to last. I don’t have any experience with men, I don’t want to embarrass myself.**

_you can cum as quickly as you need to, baby. if that’s what you want, I’m here to make you comfortable and happy. can’t have your first time with a man be awkward, can we?_

Felix shudders. **how would you do it? the first time?**

_I have this image in my head. we’re on a date somewhere public, and I can’t keep my hands off you. so you drag me into the bathroom and demand I live up to the promises I’ve been quietly making all night_

_we just kiss, at first. but you’re groping me through my clothes and I’m leaving hickeys on your neck, and we don’t have much time. so I go to my knees_

_still with me?_

Felix realizes he’s got two fingers in his mouth and is staring blankly at the screen. He wipes them off and types as quickly as he can, **i’m very much with you. don’t stop now**

_good_

_I go to my knees and open your zip. i can smell you. do you leak a lot, during foreplay?_

**depends on how good it is. so we’ll say yes. a lot**

_mmm, flatterer. I lick you first, savoring the taste, and then I take you in, sucking you until you come in my mouth. my knees might hurt a little bit, but it’ll be worth it. I love sucking cock_

_I mean, I would hope our first time would be somewhere more romantic than a restaurant bathroom, but that’s why fantasies are fantasies, yeah?_

Felix groans and smiles at the same time, pressing both into his pillow. He’s given up resisting, and his hand has found the hard ridge in his pajamas, rubbing slowly against the cotton. True to what he had said, he leaks a lot when it’s good—when it’s slow and indulgent like this and he has time to really enjoy himself—and so he’s already got quite a damp patch darkening the flannel.

**anywhere we go would be special. I’m sorry if this is fast, but I can’t stop thinking about you**

_considering i’m rubbing one out while I talk about sucking your cock, I don’t think anything you say right now could be considered “too fast”_

Oh Maker. He rubs himself more firmly, feeling his own shape and girth through his pajamas. He feels warm and prickly all over, a slow, steady burning infusing his body with desire, and he’s in no rush to get to the end of it. **I like how you make me feel.**

_tell me_

**you make me feel safe. you’re not even here with me and i feel like there’s nothing i could do or say that would be wrong**

_absolutely. i want you to feel safe. like you can explore with me, do anything_

_what sort of things do you want to try?_

**I want to suck your cock** , Felix types with a quavering thumb. **i want to lie with you in bed, naked, exploring all the ways our bodies fit together**

_i like the sound of that._

**It’s not too boring?**

_of course not._

_don’t worry, I’m not into every kinky thing under the sun. i actually prefer to keep it simple. for me, it’s more about the emotions than just getting off. does that make sense?_

_but i can be adventurous when called upon :)_

_you all right?_

Felix has never been better. He bites the pillow and squeezes himself through his pajamas, letting the last few shocks ripple through him. When he goes slack, finally, he tries to focus on a reply that doesn’t sounds totally stupid.

**i’m so good**

_that sounds promising_

**i might have cum in my pants, actually.** He blushes tremendously at his own boldness, but the reply comes swiftly and makes him smile.

_delicious. congratulations, you just had your first gay cybersex_

**is that what that was? :)**

_some version of it, anyway. our version_

**are you still…?**

_wanking? yeah. hard at work over here ;)_

_don’t worry about me. sometimes i take a while. do you need to go get cleaned up?_

**probably. Should I leave you to it?**

_feel free. wash up, get some sleep, darling. i’ll see you in a few days :)_

Felix bids him good night and rolls over to lay on his back, feeling like he was hit by a truck. When he’s ready he’ll gather himself for a shower, but until then he just lays there, soaking up the delicious afterglow and daydreaming of a man whose name he doesn’t even know and whose face he’s never seen. The nerves will hit him later, but for now, this is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those of you who haven't seen the film in a while, Meg Ryan's character puts a rose inside Pride and Prejudice when she goes to meet Tom Hanks at the cafe so he'll know it's her, thus the joke Felix makes about it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the big reveal!

“Dorian, I need your help.”

Dorian looks over the rims of his reading glasses, eyebrows lifted high. “Well hello to you, too. Did you want to look at the menu first, or just get right down to business?”

Felix sighs and slides into the booth opposite his friend. “Sorry. I’ve just been fretting about this all day, and I don’t know what to do.” He orders another of what Dorian is drinking from a passing waiter—a light Antivan white, by the looks of it, to whet the palate—and opens the menu studiously. “What do you recommend?”

“Yes, all right, stop it,” Dorian scoffs, peeling the menu away from his death grip. “I’ll just order for both of us, I know what you’ll like. Tell me about this thing you’ve been fretting about, now that my curiosity is piqued.”

Felix folds his hands on the table and looks across at Dorian. “I’ve met someone.”

Dorian’s spreading smile dawns across his face like a sunrise. “You _have_? Dare I suggest that it’s a _male_ someone?”

“It is.” Felix blushes and busies himself with the wine that has just been deposited on their table. “But it’s not that simple. I didn’t just meet him in the street, or at a bar. I… met him online.”

“Online,” Dorian echoes, moustache drawn taut as he purses his lips thoughtfully. “On a dating site, you mean? Maker, that _is_ bold for you, Felix.”

“Not a dating site so much as a, er, chatroom. KGE.”

Dorian’s jaw drops. “You went onto Kirkwall’s Gay Elite and didn’t immediately perish from embarrassment? Maker, Fee, that place is for hookups and in-depth kink discussions, not relationships.”

“I only went into the beginner forum,” Felix defends himself, though he’s still blushing. “And I started talking to this guy who seemed pretty… relaxed. We use the KGE messaging app to talk now—I haven’t even been back on the main site in months.”

“Wait—months? How long has this been going on? And you didn’t _tell me_?”

“I was exploring on my own,” Felix says quietly. “I wanted to figure it out for myself. And I did.”

“With the help of this mystery man, apparently.”

“Well… yeah.”

“What’s his name?”

“Er… bird of prey three.”

Dorian raises an unamused eyebrow. “His _real_ name.”

“I don’t know what it is. We agreed early on to keep our personal details private, at least for the time being. But Dorian—we’re going to meet. We’ve decided to… to get coffee at the art and history museum. And…”

Dorian leans across the table. “Well? I can see by that shade of red that there’s more to the story.”

Felix clears his throat. “We… had… sex. Sort of. Via chat.”

“ _Cybersex_?” Dorian enunciates with relish—thankfully low enough that none of the other diners in the restaurant can hear him. “Oh my Maker, Felix Alexius, you _dog_.”

“It—it wasn’t anything crazy,” Felix hastens to elaborate, now distinctly hot under the collar. “But it was… good. And now I’m nervous, because what if we meet and I’m not what he hoped for?”

“I would think that your primary concern would be vice versa, but I’m glad it’s not. You’re a catch, Fee, as you well know. No, don’t demur. You’re handsome and intelligent, well bred, and you have an excellent career with more promising ventures on the horizon. Any man would be lucky to have you. What concerns me is this anonymous gentleman of yours.” His grey eyes narrow into flecks of flint. “What is he like?”

“He’s…” Felix takes a breath. “Fantastic. He’s so dry and funny, and he has the best stories—he told me all about his big gay dilemma in college, trying to figure out what gender he preferred while Kirkwall was going to shit around him. He lived here during the war, Dorian, can you imagine? He doesn’t talk about it much, but I can tell it’s left its mark on him. And he has a dog, a mabari named Brinkley, and he has a job—well, a new job, actually, since the old one didn’t work out, but he says he’s starting to like it well enough, and it pays better than the old one so he’s _established_. He’s not just some bum on the street corner with the library’s internet password. He likes music and art and history, says he’s not much for math but I can forgive him that—not many people are. He’s bi, he lives alone, and he hasn’t ever pressured me to give more than I’m ready for. I was the one who had to convince him to meet, actually.”

Dorian blinks rapidly with the conclusion of this jumbled delivery. “He does sound delightful, in fact. But what do you mean you had to ‘convince him?’”

“He said he was nervous about meeting,” Felix explains. “Which, fair enough, so was I. I’ve never had an online relationship before, let alone one with another man. But… I just like him _so much_. We talk every night, and sometimes during the day, too. I’ve told him things I’ve never told anyone before, and he’s done the same with me. I was ready. And after some thinking he said he was ready too. And so,” he inhales, suddenly nervous again, “Ineedyoutocomewithme.”

Dorian coughs delicately into his hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I, um. Would really appreciate it if you came with me. To the museum. Tomorrow.”

Dorian clears his throat in preparation, and is interrupted by the arrival of the waiter. He pastes on a polite smile and orders—something in Antivan, Felix isn’t even listening—and rolls his eyes discreetly when the man finally departs. “Let me get this straight. Or not straight, rather. You have a date tomorrow to meet a man you’ve never seen, but with whom you have exchanged… shall we say… words of an _indelicate_ nature…”

“Maker, Dorian, this isn’t a historical novel.”

“Shush, I’m extrapolating. You’ve shared orgasms with this man without ever having seen his face or heard his voice, without ever _learning his name_ , and you’re meeting for _coffee_.”

Felix frowns. “What’s wrong with coffee? It’ll be a nice way to get to know one another.”

“I quite agree. What I fail to understand is why you need me along for the ride.”

“I don’t mean for you to come with me the _whole_ way. Just… to the museum. So I don’t lose my nerve. And so I don’t get murdered if he turns out to be a very devious, very patient serial killer. Please?” He bats his eyelashes. And yet, in spite of his facetiousness, he prays desperately that Dorian will agree. He doesn’t think he’ll have the courage to enter the museum all by himself.

“Of course I’ll come with you. I’ll even scope him out for you, make sure he’s good-looking enough for you to bother with.”

Felix scoffs. “I don’t care what he looks like. It’s his personality I’m attracted to.”

Dorian quirks an eyebrow. “Really. You’d go have coffee with him even if he was five foot two and was wearing a yellow duck poncho.”

“Ugh. Stop talking. Tell me about the wedding.”

“Good grief, it’s not for ages yet. I’ve barely decided on the colors,” Dorian huffs, waving him off. But, predictably, he’s off on a tangent about the wedding plans in a few more minutes, and Felix is happy to let him ramble on until the food comes, desperate to avoid overthinking about whatever tomorrow holds.

* * *

“Deep breaths, Felix. You can do this. And come here, darling, your collar is crooked.”

Felix tries to obey, inhaling slowly and deeply as Dorian fusses with him. He’s decided to go for the casually elegant look—he hopes—with slim dark wash jeans and his favorite red jumper over a black button down. They stand close together in the lobby of the museum, having paid the small admission fee; Dorian has decided to meander casually toward the café area and scout it out before continuing on to peruse the artwork alone, just in case Felix needs a rescue.

“Better?” Felix asks in a small voice when Dorian finally steps away. He insisted on wearing his glasses, not contacts, since he thinks they make his face look more interesting— _as if that lovely beard wasn’t interesting enough_ , Dorian had scoffed—and they give him a modicum of protection from the unpredictability of the world around him, or so it seems. He blinks through them at Dorian, making sure they’re perfectly clean and sparkling.

“Much. You’re going to dazzle him, my dear. Now. Are you ready?”

Felix swallows hard. He feels like he might throw up. “Ready.”

Dorian winks at him and pulls out a complimentary museum brochure, pretending to peruse it as he waffles toward the café entrance. He leans against the pillar there and looks over the top of the brochure. Felix taps his foot impatiently.

“Well? Can you see him?”

“There’s an awful lot of fellows in black shirts. Not sure about the red kerchief, though—oh wait, what’s that?”

Felix hisses and wrings his hands. “Is he hot?”

Dorian snorts and flicks his fingers at him. “Patience, darling. I can’t get a good look, he’s sitting and there’s a lady in an enormous hat in front—oh. _Oh_.”

“ _Well_?” Felix whispers, mindful of the welcome attendant at her desk just a short distance away. “What’s the verdict?”

“Oh, Felix. You lucky bastard.” Dorian strokes his moustache and smiles, still looking at the man in question, just out of Felix’s line of sight. “He _is_ a looker.”

“Yes but what does he look _like_? Details!”

“Hmm. You know who he reminds me of?” Dorian looks over at him, brochure tapping against his chin. “Carver Hawke.”

Felix blinks, taken aback. Of all the names he’d expected to hear, that was not one of them. “Carver? Really? I mean, I guess he’s good looking… ish. When he’s not actively trying to destroy our office with the force of his frown.”

“Well, Fee, let me tell you,” Dorian says, sounding serious, “if you don’t like Carver Hawke, you’re not going to like this guy.”

“Why?” Felix asks, mystified.

Dorian clears his throat. “Because it _is_ Carver Hawke.”

The floor seems to fall away beneath him and he leans back a little on his heels to counteract it. “No way. That’s impossible.” When Dorian doesn’t crack up with laughter and reassure him that it was all a joke, he finally steps up beside him and peers around the pillar.

The café area is a few steps down from the main floor of the museum, done in creamy marble and pale butter-yellow stucco with tall, lancet windows letting in streams of stained-glass light. It’s not terribly busy in spite of the weekend, and he can see at once what Dorian means. Sitting near one of the windows, with a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, is Carver Hawke—dressed all in black, from his button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, to his black slacks, to his black wingtip oxfords. All except for the brilliant splash of scarlet at his breast pocket, where a silk handkerchief pokes out, patterned with bright, effusive red roses.

Felix staggers back and leans against the pillar, entirely at sea. “The Maker sure has a funny sense of humor.”

“Are you all right?” Dorian asks, his voice sounding a bit as if it’s coming to him through a long tunnel. “You look pale, Fee.”

“I’m fine. I’m—not going to faint.” He brushes Dorian off with a grunt of annoyance, even though he’s pretty sure the pillar is doing most of the work at keeping him upright. “Fucking Void, Dor, what am I supposed to do _now_?”

Dorian stares at him as if he’s gone mad. “Go talk to him, of course!” When Felix hesitates, his brows lower in a dark frown. “You are not allowed to stand him up, Felix. That’s just cruel.”

“Cruel,” Felix scoffed. “As if he hasn’t been cruel to me many times over since my father hired him! Carver _hates_ me, Dorian. He may tolerate me bringing him coffee in the mornings, but I doubt our relationship will ever progress past grunts of “hello” and “goodbye” at the proper intervals, online friendships or no.”

He turns to go, shoulders hunched against the disappointment swirling in his belly, and finds himself yanked back by the collar of his shirt. “Wait just a minute. Yesterday you were telling me how you were all but in love with this guy, and now suddenly he’s worthless to you?”

“He’s not worthless,” Felix snaps bitterly. “ _I_ am—that’s what he thinks, anyway. So what does it matter if we fell in love online? Or if I _do_ think he’s incredibly attractive, more than I could have ever imagined?  It’s the online me he wants, not the real me.”

“Nonsense,” Dorian snaps, earning a pointed throat-clearing from the welcome attendant. He lowers his voice and steps closer, one eye on the café entrance. “Of course he wants the real you, he just doesn’t know it yet. It’s _your_ job to convince him.”

“Convince him,” Felix snorts. “Really. How?”

“Woo him. Win his heart. And when you’re ready to spring the trap—voila. He’s yours.”

Felix wrinkles his nose. “You make it sound so cutthroat.”

“That’s because it is. All’s fair in love and war, my dear. You know what you want, that’s the first step. Now you just have to reach for it.”

* * *

Carver checks his phone for the third time in as many minutes and huffs, annoyed at himself. He flips it upside down and takes a sip of his latte. At this rate he’ll have to get up to pee, and he’ll miss the whole thing. Twenty minutes late isn’t unusual. He probably hit a spot of traffic, or got off the wrong underground stop. He just has to be patient. 

He’s patiently drumming his fingers on the table, to the annoyance of his neighbors, when a familiar face wanders in and steps up to the counter to order a coffee: Felix bloody Alexius. Of course. As if he doesn’t see enough of him during the week, now he’s running into him on weekends, too. He grabs for his phone after all and starts scrolling through it blindly, hoping to pass unnoticed. 

No such luck. 

“Carver?” Oh, Maker, why was he cursed to have the most obnoxious and effusive coworker in all of Thedas? “Carver Hawke, is that you?” 

“Oh, hello,” Carver monotones, giving up and setting down his phone. His eyes flick again to the entrance, but it remains stubbornly empty. Where the fuck is he? “Very nice to see you, enjoy your coffee, goodbye.”

Felix freezes, smile wiped away. “I’m bothering you. Sorry, I’ll go.” 

Damn it. “No, hang on—Felix.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m not in a very good mood at the moment.” 

“Are you ever?” Felix asks lightly. Ouch. 

“I deserved that.” 

“Maybe.” The smile isn’t back, not really, but his lips are quirked as if he’s holding something back—maybe a smile, or maybe something else. He cups his coffee in his hand, but he seems in no rush to drink it. “Are you waiting for someone?”

Carver checks his phone again. Half an hour late. “I was.”

“And she’s late.” It’s not teasing, or even accusatory, but it’s not sympathetic either. Just a bland statement of fact. It still makes his hackles rise. 

“He, actually. And yes. Very late.”

“Oh. I’m sorry for assuming. And for…”

“Yes, well. I suppose it’s not surprising.” Bitterness wells up in him suddenly, thinking of [euclidean_playa]’s sweetness and gentle nature, and he knows that if he can’t even be civil to Felix Alexius he hardly deserves the good opinion of his missing beau. “I’m a miserable bastard these days, after all.  _I_  would stand me up, if it were me.”

Felix’s brows fold together, and sweet Andraste, is he feeling sorry for him? What a pretty picture they make. “I’m sure that’s not true,” he says quietly. He hesitates, feet all but shuffling together, before blurting out, “I could keep you company, if you wanted. Although maybe you’d prefer to be alone.” 

Carver can’t say he was expecting that offer. Movement near the cafe entrance catches his eye, but it’s only Dorian Pavus, looking vaguely constipated as he searches the room. “You sure? I think your date is looking for you.”

Felix looks back over his shoulder and waves him off with a careless flick of his wrist. “Oh, Dorian. He can wait. He dragged me here, after all.”

“You don’t like museums?” Carver inquires. 

“Oh, no, I quite like them. But I’ve already been through this one, and I found the blurbs about the city’s history quite... lacking.”

“Ha! Yeah, the city likes to gloss over things, make itself look better for the tourists. If you like I could give you the _real_ tour—I lived here during the war, so it’s kind of hard to pretend this stuff never happened.”

Felix smiles, the first real smile he’s ever given out of complete sincerity, and Carver finds himself smiling hesitantly back. “Are you offering to give me the inside scoop?”

“Ugh. Only if you promise not to call it that.” He taps his fingers on the table one more time. _He’s not coming. Might as well make the best of it._ “Why don’t you sit? You can drink your coffee, and I can delight in the sound of my own voice for a little while. The café area alone deserves at least half an hour of extrapolation on the architectural choices.”

Felix sits, smothering his surprise behind a sip of his latte. Carver’s not sure what surprises him more: that he actually offered to give Felix a tour of the museum, or that Felix actually accepted. For some reason, it doesn’t seem to matter. For the first time in about half an hour, he finds he’s happy to be here.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some warnings for this chapter: references to "the war" including bodily injury, canon-compliant character death, and a PTSD mention.

_euclid,_

_I want to believe that you have a perfectly reasonable excuse for why you stood me up today. And yeah, I’m going to be that guy and say you ‘stood me up’ because that’s exactly what it was. I felt like an utter fool. And I can’t believe you did it purely out of spite. For as long as I’ve known you, through all the letters and messages we’ve exchanged, you’ve never once seemed to be the sort of person who would do that kind of thing. So I am understandably baffled._

_And hurt. Yeah, I’m man enough to admit it. I imagine you took one look at me and walked away without even making eye contact, which is only the second worst case scenario. The first is that you didn’t show up at all, because this was never anything to you. Nothing meaningful. Not like it is to me._

_I didn’t mean to start feeling this way about you, a person I’ve never even seen, but there it is. I’m sorry if that frightened you off. I hope we can still be friends, and I hope you have a good reason for leaving me hanging. I don’t want to hate you for it, truly, but there’s a small piece of me that does anyway. I’m sorry. Please write back soon._

_Yours, bp3_

He fucked up. Badly. Felix puts his face in his hands, miserable with guilt. How is he supposed to fix this?

The afternoon at the museum had been… surprisingly nice. Carver had been distracted at first, always looking over his shoulder as if waiting for the _real_ [euclidean_playa] to show up, but gradually he warmed to his task, and once he got going he was a delight to listen to. He went into surprising detail on the history of Kirkwall, how the mage uprising started here and spread like wildfire across Thedas until the Divine was forced to sign a declaration of rights that gave mages equal treatment under the law. His own sister being a mage, and a lifelong apostate at that, gave him a unique perspective that Felix appreciated. Even now anti-mage sentiment runs like an undercurrent of ugliness through Kirkwall’s rebuilt streets, and he knows that it’s only his wealth and social privileges that keep him above the worst of it. Carver, meanwhile, had grown up in the midst of it and even done his fair share of fighting it. 

“My brother and I joined the rebels when our sister was taken into custody near the beginning,” he explained while standing in front of a display of war propaganda: bold, crisp lines printed on nice card stock, commissioned by Commander Meredith herself, offset by photographs of the slapdash but sincere graffiti that once covered Darktown in defiance of anti-mage sentiment.  ”Our dad was out of the country at the time, organizing aid in Ferelden, and when he came back it was just in time for the Chantry explosion. He died of smoke inhalation a few days later, after pulling more than twenty people out of the rubble.” 

Felix stared at the display, with the neat little placard listing bland facts like a textbook, and he knew that he was being gifted with a point of view that very few people outside Kirkwall could understand. 

Now he rubs his scalp with his fingertips and wracks his brain for a way to make it up to [birdofprey3]--to Carver. He picks up a passing Priscilla and props her against his shoulder. “I was trapped on the train underground and there was no signal,” he says aloud, already dismissing it. “For an hour? Not likely. I… had an emergency meeting at work. And my phone was dead so I couldn’t message you. Ugh, no.” 

Priscilla miaows plaintively. Felix sighs and lets her escape. 

“Those are all terrible, aren’t they? What do I do?” He pushes away from the desk and paces a little circle in front of his window. Outside, the snow has melted and given way to freezing rain, coating the city in a fog of dead, grey cold that sinks into his Tevinter bones and twists until he feels as brittle as a stalk of grass. Faced with the grim reality of what lies outside his window, his little holiday fantasy of a few days ago seems silly and childish. There’s no help for it. He’s going to have to tell the truth—or part of it, anyway. 

**My dear friend,**

**I tried to come up with a believable excuse to explain why I wasn’t there to meet you yesterday, but I couldn’t think of anything, and the truth is far less interesting. The truth is that I lost my nerve, and I’m so sorry. I saw you sitting there and I realized how foolish I was to think you might ever see me as more than a friend. You’re beautiful, you know that? More than I ever dreamed of or hoped for. You don’t deserve my shyness, and I’m sorry for that. If I had been braver maybe I could have made you happy, at least for a little while. But what if I couldn’t? That thought is unbearable to me.**

**I tried, but I couldn’t convince myself to go to you—I was afraid of losing this. And I can’t lose it. You make me so happy, I can’t even explain it. I’m always thinking of little things to put in my emails while I go about my day. Oh, I saw this dog with the goofiest expression on its face, or I had a latte that made me think of the way I picture your smile, or I had an argument with someone and I wanted to tell you about it so you could cheer me on. If all that was gone, I don’t know what I’d do.**

**All I can say is that I’m sorry. And that I hope you forgive me. And that I hope I haven’t just ruined everything with my cowardice.**

**Ever yours, e_p.**

* * *

“He did WHAT?”

“Stood me up,” Carver says patiently, the words blunted by repetition into something more manageable than _rejection_. “He didn’t show.”

“What the fuck.” She slams the cupboard door and leans against it, red-faced with righteous fury on his behalf. “So what, you just sat there for a while and then left?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not _exactly_? I need details, Carver!”

“Details of what?” Garrett asks, nosing his way into the kitchen. “Are you gossiping without me? The nerve!”

“It’s twin talk,” Beth says loftily. “Did you get my text?”

“About the wine? Yeah, it’s sorted, I think Fen’s got it in his load.” Garrett deposits his bags of groceries on the counter and starts dividing them into piles of perishable and non-perishable. “So?? Don’t stop on my account.”

“It’s fine,” Carver says at Beth’s querying look. “Give him all the juicy details.” 

She does, restarting halfway through to get Fenris up to speed when he comes in with his own bags, and at the end of it Garrett thumps the counter with his fist and exclaims, “He _stood you up_? How dare he! I’m getting to the bottom of this, right now.”

“Gare, don’t,” Carver says, sharing an eye roll with Fenris at his brother’s dramatics. “What are you going to do, hack his computer?”

“It can be done. Easily. I know people.” 

“If the ‘people’ you’re thinking of is the ‘people’ _I’m_ thinking of, the answer is no. How do you even know how to contact him? I thought he was put under witness protection.”

“He’s a hacker, Carv. He knows how to get around rules.”

Fenris clears his throat, offering input for the first time since he entered the kitchen. “I think you should listen to your brother, Garrett. Contacting Anders—illegally, I might add—for the sake of a not-quite-lover’s tiff seems a bit extreme.”

“Thank you,” Carver says, sighing with relief. 

“Fine,” Garrett pouts. “But there’s more to the story. What happened next?”

Carver suddenly feels the weight of three pairs of eyes fixed on him. “Erm. Then I ran into Felix and we walked around the museum because he felt bad for me.”

“Wait, what? Felix _Alexius_?”

“The very same.”

“And you tolerated his company willingly?”

Carver shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable. “It wasn’t so bad. I don’t hate him, you know. We work together. We’re civil.”

“Civil? Carver, you almost got fired because you couldn’t stop yourself from talking shit about him in front of his _dad_.” 

Bethany’s mouth drops open. “You did _what_?”

“It was one time,” Carver complains, “and it all turned out, anyway.” He pushes away from the counter and digs around in the grocery sacks. “Look, I’m tired of talking about it. He apologized, I forgave him—sort of—and now I’d very much like to drink this bottle of wine and make dinner and not think about it anymore.”

* * *

Carver comes in to work the next day with the kind of hangover you only get after tossing and turning all night long trying to decide what to do about your (semi-existent) love life. He's a few minutes later than he usually prefers to be, and Felix is already bent over a drafting table when he arrives, a cup from Sabrae sitting on Carver’s desk. The lid is propped loosely on top to allow some steam to escape, and when he bends over it he can smell the caramel and espresso rising to caress his nostrils. 

"Maker," he groans, embarrassingly orgasmic, but he's too exhausted to care. "You are a god. Have I ever told you that?"

Felix makes a short noise in his throat, part amusement part disbelief. "I can't say that you have, no." 

"Well you are."

"All the time, or just today?"

"All the time, and _especially_ today." He cups the macchiato in both hands and holds it to his face, just breathing it in.

On the other side of the room, Felix continues to work in contented silence. Baffled, Carver watches him. Their evening at the museum yesterday almost feels like a dream, but the level of comfort in the office tells him otherwise. Did he really tell Felix about his dad? About the night the loyalists had taken Bethy? About the four hours he'd spent in a back alley near the end of the conflict, holding a hand to his own stomach to keep from bleeding out until the rebels found him? Things he hadn't spoken about in years had welled to the surface as he led Felix through the museum, and in spite of his dry eyes and pounding head, he fancies he feels a bit lighter for it. 

He clears his throat, and Felix glances up at him. “Listen. I, uh. I wondered if you wanted to get lunch today. On me.”

Felix blinks, nonplussed, or perhaps just utterly confused by the offer. “You… want to buy me lunch.”

Carver shrugs uncomfortably. “It’s the least I can do for making your life a misery for the last two weeks.”

“It wasn’t all bad.”

“Don’t lie, it absolutely was.”

“You weren’t entirely without reason.” Felix is smiling now, leaning back in his chair and flipping his pencil between forefinger and thumb. He looks different to Carver today, for some reason—softer, more open. He feels a rush of shame when he realizes the reason for that openness is all _him_. His own change of heart. He shakes his head, willing the thumb he’s pressing into the arch of his brow to take away his headache.

“It wasn’t you I was angry at, really, just... circumstance,” he says, refusing to look at him. He can be civil, even kind, but until he apologizes, the weight of his anger is never going to fully leave him. “I took it out on the most readily available target, which was you, so can we just do lunch and not talk about it again?”

“Was there an apology in there somewhere?” Felix wonders, not sounding annoyed at all.

“There was supposed to be,” Carver admits. “I’m notoriously bad at them.”

“So, lunch equals an apology. I don’t know about that. Considering all the money I’ve been spending on you for coffee the past two weeks, I thought it ought to be multiple lunches.”

Carver stares into his macchiato instead of at Felix. “That seems fair. How many lunches are we talking?”

“Oh, you know. Nothing outrageous. A week’s worth, maybe, but we don’t have to do them all at once.” He pushes his glasses up and leans back over the drafting table, signaling that the conversation can be over, now. If Carver wants it to be. For the first time since he started working here, he doesn’t think he wants it to be over.

“A week’s worth doesn’t seem like all that many. Especially after yesterday.”

Felix glances up. “What about yesterday?”

“You saved me from an evening of humiliation and boredom. And you took my mind off of things, for a little while. I appreciate it.”

“You don’t have to thank me for _that_ ,” Felix says mildly. “I enjoyed myself, and I learned a great deal. Win-win.” He nibbles briefly on the end of his pencil. When Carver doesn’t reach to fill the silence, he says, “So this… gentleman. You haven’t heard from him at all?”

“I did, actually,” Carver says, feeling a bit awkward but not enough to keep it to himself. Felix knows half the story, he might as well know all of it. “He apologized, quite poetically. Said he lost his nerve.”

“It was a blind date, then?”

“Sort of. We… er… met online.” He’s blushing a little already, preemptively embarrassed, but Felix doesn’t seem at all bothered.

“How modern. If I wasn’t so terrified of meeting creeps I might have done the same.”

Carver opens his mouth to reply and closes it again. Colloquially, referring to potential online romantic interests as “creeps” suggests they’re male, which is not at all what he’d imagined from Felix stick-in-the-mud Alexius. Or not so stick-in-the-mud. “You have to be careful,” he says neutrally, avoiding the topic altogether. “But most people are genuine, at least around here. I don’t know how it is in Tevinter.”

“I wouldn’t know either, really. I didn’t date much in person, let alone online.” His mouth folds in a bit, as if he regrets sharing so much information, and Carver feels the absurd desire to assuage him with his own confessions.

“Neither have I. I think I’ve seen two people since the war ended, and it never went anywhere. In person, it’s… difficult, for me. Not so much anymore, I hope, but my PTSD was pretty bad for a few years. I wasn’t a very nice person to be around.” He makes a face. “My assholery to _you_ is unrelated. Mostly.”

“We seem to be getting along fine now,” Felix points out, smiling.

“Huh. So we are. What do you know.”

He’s suddenly very optimistic about lunch.

* * *

Later that evening, after a surprisingly pleasant stroll to Sabrae for sandwiches with Felix, Carver logs on to a little green “online” circle and no new mail. He toys with the idea of ignoring [euclidean_playa] entirely, and just as quickly decides that wouldn’t be fair. To either of them. He sets fingers to keys and begins to type.

_hello there. busy?_

The reply, tellingly, comes almost right away. **Hello :) No, I’m not busy.**

_i guess i was surprised about the lack of email in my inbox. you’re usually very punctual, and you know how much i love hearing “you’ve got mail!”_

**I’m sorry. It’s silly, but I find myself nervous to talk to you now, after I was so horrible.**

_you weren’t horrible, you were scared. there’s a difference._ It’s a difference he’s beginning to see more clearly, especially after lunch with Felix. He’d been very interested in the little anecdotes Carver was willing to share about his online “friend,” and talking it out with someone who wasn’t inclined to judge had done wonders for his attitude toward the whole affair.

**Thank you for thinking so. I really do feel badly.**

_i know, so you’ve said :)_

_that wasn’t meant to be accusatory. just, you don’t have to keep apologizing. you weren’t ready. it’s fine._

**I wanted to be ready. I _will_ be ready, at some point. maybe soon. if you still wanted to try again**

_we’ll see. give it time. let’s get to know each other better, first._

**I like that idea :)**

_you know what i realized?_

**what?**

_you know what I look like, but I don’t know what you look like. that’s incredibly unfair_

He’s sort of hoping for a more detailed description of [euclidean_playa] than “tan and bearded,” but the message that follows derails this train of thought entirely.

**Maybe you don’t know what I look like, but I still don’t know what you taste like.**

Carver feels his heart stop in his chest. How can simple words on a screen have so much power? He’s suddenly feeling a bit pinched in the crotch department, and he shifts his hips against the mattress to try and rectify the situation. He considers his options, and types out carefully:

_would you like to find out?_

**Tell me.**

With shallows breaths, he thumbs open the button on his jeans and lets the zip trail open. His cock lifts out immediately, only just barely held in check by his briefs, and the smell hits him a moment later—musky and warm, with a little bit of clean sweat underneath. He slips his hand beneath the elastic and adjusts himself to lay more comfortably up against his belly, letting his fingertips graze the weeping slit. Even that brief touch sizzles in his blood, and he brings his fingers to his mouth, dragging his tongue over the pads and savoring the taste.

_salt. a little bitter. like skin and sweat and need_

**fuck**

Carver is in hearty agreement. _wish you were here to taste for yourself. put your tongue on the head of my cock and lick every drip that comes out_

**I want that. I want the weight of you on my tongue. I’ve never sucked cock before but I bet I’d be fantastic at it**

_i have no doubt. and if you wanted i could help you. tell you what to do, what i like. do all those things to you too_

He stops typing to reach inside his briefs and fist himself in earnest. Maker, but his blood is thrumming in his veins, and he’s so hard he can feel every heartbeat pulsing in the root of his cock. He wishes briefly for a bit of slick, but that would require more effort than he cares to expend right now, so he contents himself with a wad of saliva in the palm of his hand and a brisk, gentle stroke that lights up his nerves like wildfire.

_what are you doing now? tell me_

The reply is a little long in coming, but when it does, it’s worth it. **sorry, was adjusting myself. I’m on my front on my bed, just in my briefs—I’m trying to be patient but I can’t stop humping the mattress. I keep thinking of your taste, of your hands on me and it feels like my skin is on fire**

**fuck**

**oh fuck me please**

Carver groans unbidden, startling himself. He huffs a strangled laugh at himself and rolls on his side, kicking free of his jeans.

_i want you naked. fuck the mattress with your cock_

**oh maker**

**you too**

**please**

All capitals and punctuation have been forgone in favor of pleasure. Carver approves. He squirms down against the pillows until he’s flat on his back and can peel out of his briefs. The undershirt comes next, and when he tugs his laptop back over to sit on his belly, it scorches his skin in the best way.

_done, for you. my blankets feel so soft against my skin. i want to know what your skin feels like_

**hot, smooth. sweaty**

Carver huffs and tugs harder at the head of his cock, feeling a fresh prickle of sweat under his arms and at the small of his back where it arches away from the bed.

_me too. do something for me?_

**anything**

_reach back and grab your ass for me since i can’t do it myself. rub it. squeeze. rub your hole, just the outside, tell me how it feels_

His temples are pounding at his own boldness, but he’s rewarded sooner than he expects, the messages coming one after another in quick succession.

**oh Maker. i’ve never done that before but i want more**

**i want your hand on me, your fingers inside me**

**tell me what to do**

Oh _fuck_. Carver squeezes the base of his cock to try and calm down, but his balls are already drawn up tight and feel full to bursting.

_do you have any slick?_

**yeah**

_get your fingers nice and wet. rub your hole like you did before, just the outside, spreading it. reach all the way back, cup your balls, massage your perineum. feel good?_

**so good. Maker it’s so good**

_keep rubbing your hole. breathe. when it feels a little looser try and get a finger in—bear down and it will make it easier_

Carver is breathing so hard he can’t hear anything else—not the traffic outside, not Brinkley’s pacing feet, not the crackle of the fire. He lets his cock slap against his belly and rubs his inner thigh with a hand still damp from jacking off, trying to slow his racing mind.

**oh. oh fucking**

**it’s not what i was expecting but it’s so good**

**for a moment it was odd, and then. i want more. put your fingers in me**

“Would if I could, darling,” he whispers to the empty loft, eyes fluttering shut. He licks his thumb and rubs slow circles against his frenulum, teasing, drawing out the pleasure. He can feel it like a hard knot in his belly, hot and pulsing, so close to the edge.

_wish i could put my cock in you. i bet you’d take it so well_

**2 fingers** , comes the reply. **i thought this would be harder**

***more difficult i swear if you make a dick joke right now**

Carver giggles and bites the inside of his cheek. _you fucking adorable creature_

_that’s good. two fingers is perfect. find your prostate for me darling. push your sweet cock against me, feel how hot i am for you_

He can’t wait anymore. He spits again into his palm and works the top half of his cock, groaning brokenly, and then three little words pop up on his screen.

**im gonna cum**

“Yes, fucking cum for me you gorgeous thing,” he gasps. He pushes his laptop off onto the mattress and pumps his fist hard. His belly tightens and he arches his head back into the pillow with a cry as hot ropes of cum paint his fist and stomach and shudders grip his entire body. When he can move again, he reaches out with his clean hand and types, _i came thinking of you._

 **me too** , comes the bashful reply. **i though of how your cheeks would flush and how you’d gasp into my ear as you came inside me and i made a mess of my sheets**

Carver shudders. It should be creepy, shouldn’t it, that this man knows what he looks like well enough to imagine in such detail? But he can’t bring himself to be disturbed, not with his body still flooded with endorphins and his own semen starting to dry all tacky on his skin.

_are you trying to kill me?_

**is it working? ;)**

_slowly but surely. maker. i want you so badly._

_but i can wait_

**i’m sorry**

_don’t be. it’s fine. for now i have the memory of this to keep me warm at night_

The little **< 3 **that [euclidean_playa] sends back puts a smile on his face, and he slips out of bed to clean up, looking forward to a cozy evening chatting and flirting with whoever this man is.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the penny drops...

“Maker fuck.”

Carver slams his head back against the headrest and groans, pumping the clutch to no avail. The wheels of his ancient car spin frantically against the icy road and smoke billows from the exhaust pipe, but nothing happens. He’s well and truly stuck. 

He slams out of the car and stomps around to the front where it’s wedged nose-first in a mean-looking snowdrift at the edge of the deserted Hightown road. The wind lashes the back of his neck like a whip, flinging snow into his eyes and down his collar as he stoops, trying to find the problem, but it’s impossible. He can’t see for shit, and the snow is already drifting into the skid marks he left behind, sealing him in. He straightens up and groans, long and heartfelt. So much for going above and beyond the call of duty. He reckons he’s about halfway between his place and the office, so he might as well turn around and walk home. 

“Carver? Are you okay?”

He turns around so quickly he nearly loses his footing on the treacherous road. The door to the townhouse he’s stuck in front of is open, and through the driving snow he can just make out the shape of someone standing there, watching him. His brain catches up to his ears and he realizes who it is. 

“Felix? Is this your house?”

“My dad’s, but yeah, I live here,” Felix says, stumbling over the explanation as he picks his way down the front steps. “Did you have an accident? Maker, didn’t you know all the local businesses are closed for the storm?” 

“Yeah.” Carver shoves his hands in his pockets and hikes his shoulders up against the snow, even though he’s already soaked through to his thermal. At least his sweater is still dry. “I wanted to pick up some things from the office but I guess that’s a no-go.”

“I should say so. Please, come in—you’re not hurt, are you?”

“I’m fine,” Carver says automatically, following Felix inside. The storm cuts off abruptly, leaving him damp and disoriented on the front mat. “Might have a stiff neck tomorrow morning, but that’s not unusual.” 

Felix clears his throat, a complicated sound that sounds sort of like a giggle. He picked up on the double entendre, then. “Well you can’t go anywhere right now, not with the storm the way it is.”

“I thought I would just walk home,” Carver begins, but Felix is already shaking his head. 

“You’ll be buried before you go two blocks. I was just about to have some cocoa and be lazy in front of the fire. Join me for a bit, at least until it stops snowing quite so badly.” 

“I don’t want to impose,” Carver says hesitantly. As lovely as a cozy morning in front of the fire sounds, he’s still not quite sure where he stands with Felix. Coworkers? Yes. Acquaintances? Certainly. Friends? That’s a little harder to distinguish. 

“It’s not imposing,” Felix says, smiling. Carver’s chest does something funny. Okay. Maybe not so hard to distinguish after all. 

“All right then.” He peels off his sodden coat and boots at the door at Felix’s direction before following him through the house. It’s gorgeous, laid out a lot like the Amell estate where Garrett lives with Fenris, but where Garret’s place is almost museum-like in its preservation, this place has clearly seen a lot of recent upgrades. The smell of fresh paint still hangs faintly in the air like a fusty potpourri, and the old, dark woodwork has been refinished to match the bright cast of the walls. 

“Birdie!” Felix calls suddenly, startling him. “We’re going to need another cocoa!”

They duck through a side door and come into a kitchen, a wide, square room with a red tile floor and low wooden counters that look well-used. An older woman with dark red hair is stirring busily at the stove, a phone in her free hand. “Get another mug then, Felix my dear. Is your father home early?”

“No, a friend of mine happened to get his car stuck outside the house and I brought him in to warm him up. This is Carver.”

She turns, pencil-thin eyebrows lifting high over her half-moon spectacles. “Carver _Hawke_?”

She knows him? That doesn’t bode well. Felix cringes slightly. “Er, yes.”

“Hmm.”

She doesn’t say anything more, but it’s clear she disapproves. Still, she ladles out the cocoa into the mugs Felix provides and doesn’t stint—Carver has to walk carefully to keep from spilling as Felix leads him back through the hall to a room just next to the entryway. He slows as he enters, impressed. It’s a library, half of it circular, with a roaring fireplace and floor-to-ceiling shelves well stocked with books. There’s even a ladder on a rail, for those many tomes that sit well out of reach. Felix has clearly set up shop for the day: there’s a book open on rug in front of the hearth, and a laptop hibernating on the heavy wooden desk sat nearby. Felix bypasses this and goes straight for the rug, which is thick and inviting, and there he pauses.

“You’re soaked through. Why don’t we put your wet things in the dryer? I can lend you something of mine in the meantime.”

Carver gapes for a moment, struck dumb by his easy hospitality. “I don’t want to impose—I already said that, didn’t I.”

Felix is trying not to laugh at him. Mostly he succeeds, but his eyes are sparkling with mirth when he says, sort of pinched, “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

Carver tries to sip his cocoa while he waits, but it’s still far too hot, so he sets it on the desk and stands as close to the fire as he can bear, letting its heat soak into him. He’s afraid to leave his coat anywhere, lest it drip onto the fancy rug or the nice wooden chair pushed against the desk, so he unzips it but leaves it on, hoping the fire will combat some of the damp.

His eyes fall to the book still cracked open on the rug at his feet. The spine is facing him, the cover a dull sort of grey-green canvas, clearly quite old—but it’s the spine that catches his eye, specifically the little words stamped into it. _Euclid’s Elements of Geometry._

His heart stops in his chest. His mind leaps instantly to [euclidean_playa] because of _course_ it does. The name is hardwired into him from months of talking to its owner, and it barely takes more than the first two vowels of _Euclid_ before his brain is filling in the blanks. Like he’s been hit over the head with a hammer and had his entire thought process turned upside down and shaken vigorously, the last few weeks fall into a new alignment. [euclidean_playa]’s “problem coworker.” Carver’s advice to _kill him with kindness_ , and the next day Felix showing up with a soy latte out of the blue. His upbringing in “the north,” his description of himself, his mother, good lord the _cybersex_. A picture slams into him of Felix stretched out in bed, rubbing one out while Carver unknowingly talks him through it, and he nearly doubles over with the bolt of arousal that unexpectedly strips him bare.

He scoops up the book and looks through it briefly, mind whirling. There are little notes penciled into the margins, and in the front of it are Felix’s initials and the name of an architectural geometry course written in Tevene. And then Carver remembers the museum. Of course. [euclidean_playa] had been _right in front of him—_ they’d had the very date Carver had suggested and he hadn’t even _known_. And Felix had. He’d known the moment he walked into the café and saw Carver sitting there ready to brush him off. That absolute _bastard_. Why hadn’t he said anything?

“Because he didn’t want to admit to it you _bleeding_ idiot,” he whispers furiously to himself. “To you, of all people!”

“Carver?”

He jerks around, the book still open in his hand. Felix has arrived with spare clothes, soft and warm jersey knits by the look of it, but his eyes are on Carver’s own burden. “Doing a little light reading?” He sounds nervous—a bit strangled, actually. He can’t seem to look away from the book, the incriminating evidence held right in the palm of Caver’s hand. Bingo. 

“Just passing the time,” he answers, smiling blandly. “You’re a fan of Euclid, then?”

“Er, yeah. I studied him in college.” Is he blushing? Carver snaps the book shut and Felix jumps.

“Euclidean Plane,” he says, with utmost indifference. “Fascinating stuff.”

“Er, yes. I quite agree.” Felix clears his throat. “I, ah, brought you some sweatpants and socks. I hope they fit—the sweatpants, not the socks. You’re a bit bigger than I am.”

“What are you trying to say?” Carver deadpans. 

“It was a compliment, you bloody impossible man,” Felix mutters, the tips of his ears turning pink. He all but shoves the clothes into Carver’s arms and flees. “I’ll just wait outside. No one will come in, it’s just me and Birdie here.” 

The door closes behind him with a decisive click, leaving Carver in the middle of the room with an armful of borrowed clothes and a smirk as wide as the Waking Sea. Felix is [euclidean_playa], he has to be. But he can’t ask him to his face, not yet—he can’t take the risk of being wrong and embarrassing himself. There’s only one way to know for sure. 

They’re going to have to meet. 

* * *

Felix is on tenterhooks for a good fifteen minutes after Carver changes out of his wet things and they settle down by the fire with their cocoas. The look on his face when Felix walked into the room was unmistakable—he has to know. There’s no way he doesn’t, not after that remark about the Euclidean Plane. And yet he’s giving no other sign that he’s figured it out.

“What about this online gentleman of yours?” he pries when they’ve drunk their cocoa down to dregs and he’s feeling a little calmer—or maybe that’s just the sugar high lulling him into a false sense of security. “Have you made any progress there?”

Carver purses his lips and stares into the fire for so long that Felix wonders if he’s crossed an invisible barrier. But eventually he sighs and says, “I don’t know. We still talk, but not as much as before. I guess… it’s hard for me to trust him, now. I wish it wasn’t that way. But I can’t blame him.”

“Why not?” Felix demands, putting as much genuine offense into his words as he can muster. “He stood you up! You could kick him to the curb right now and it wouldn’t be out of line.”

Carver looks askance at him, his smile almost rueful. “I can’t do that. Not yet. I’ve… been thinking of giving him another chance, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, up ’til this point it’s kind of been a comedy of errors. We danced around each other for ages, tried to meet up, and things fell apart. In some ways we’re back to square one—and in others we’re closer than ever. I’m trying to be patient, but there’s only so many mix-ups I can take before I’m going to hire a hacker and just track this guy down.”

Felix squeaks and clears his throat abruptly. “Would you do that?”

He sighs. “No, probably not. I respect his privacy, if nothing else. I just… don’t want him to feel like he’s inferior somehow. His apology email was sort of colored that way. I wish I could tell him it’s not the outside that matters, but the inside. That’s the part I’m—falling for.”

Felix props his chin on his knees and tries not to smile. Maker, there must be a whole horde of butterflies trapped inside his chest for how hard his heart is fluttering. “Why don’t you tell him? I’m sure he’d love to hear it. Any man would.”

“It feels presumptuous, you know? I don’t want to tell him, hey, don’t feel bad about your looks, I love the inside of you! Because a bloke likes to know he _looks_ good, and I can’t deny I’m hoping he’s _somewhat_ attractive. What can I say? I’m shallow.”

“You’re not,” Felix scoffs. “Not any more than the usual amount, anyway.”

“Oh? What’s the usual amount?”

“About a teaspoon and a half, I think.” Felix smirks and nudges him a bit with his foot. “Stop looking so hangdog, Hawke. Things’ll work themselves out.”

The look Carver gives him is startled, almost disbelieving. “That’s a very _Ferelden_ expression, Tevinter.”

“Is it?” Felix queries innocently. “I must have picked it up somewhere. Maybe even from you.”

Oh sweet Andraste, here it comes. Carver’s mouth opens like a fish’s, gaping for a moment before he closes again. “Maybe so,” is all he says, small-voiced. Felix wants to stab himself with a pencil—anything to break the tension. It’s so bleeding _obvious_.  

Rather than being forced to grab for a pencil, though, the tension is broken when the front door bangs open and shuts again. The air displacement sends a draft whiffling over them, and Felix shivers instinctively. “Dad’s home, must be.”

“Felix?” comes the voice of the man himself. “Whose car is that planted on out front stoop?”

The open amusement written on Carver’s face erases itself, growing taut and uncomfortable. Felix only has enough time to frown at him, puzzled by the change, when Gereon walks in, lightly dusted with snow, and stops in the doorway. He isn’t Felix’s dad just then—he’s Mr. Alexius, head of the Alexius Architecture Company, and Carver’s boss. And he doesn’t look all that pleased to see him having cocoa on the floor with his son.

“Ah. Carver. Had some trouble getting to work? Did you not get the weather alert I had sent out?”

“I did. There were a few things I wanted to pick up from the office so I could work from home, but I didn’t exactly beat the weather like I’d hoped.” Carver looks like he wants to stand up and maybe salute, but the fact that he’s wearing Felix’s spare pajama bottoms seems to be preventing him.

“Looks as though the weather beat _you_ ,” Gereon says lightly, and Felix suddenly deeply regrets getting his father involved in his minor feud with Carver—only a few weeks ago, but it now feels like a decade at least.

“His car is stuck and I couldn’t let him walk home in that storm,” he says, hoping to smooth things over.

Gereon looks at him and smiles his fake polite-company smile. “Felix, could I have a word?” As neat and precise as if Felix is in a three-piece suit and not in his track bottoms and coziest, lumpiest jumper. He sighs inwardly.

“Sure, Dad.”

The informality makes Carver twitch—Felix catches it from the corner of his eye as he stands and follows his father into the corridor. Felix folds his arms and waits.

“What is he doing here?” Gereon whispers, mindful of the library door standing ajar nearby.

“I told you. He was stranded. I offered to keep him from freezing to death.”

“The storm let up an hour ago. The sidewalk ploughs have been on this side of the street twice already. And he’s here having hot cocoa in my library, _wearing your pajamas_.”

Felix pinches his lips together to keep from shouting at him. “Yes. That’s a correct statement of fact. What’s your point?”

“My point, Felix, is that this man—who has caused you a considerable amount of grief, and don’t pretend that’s not the case—is abusing your hospitality and you are _letting him_. What have I told you about standing up for yourself, Felix?” He opens his mouth again to press on, but Felix can’t take it anymore.

“Are you serious right now? Carver is my _friend_ , Dad. Yeah, we had some trouble getting acquainted at first, considering we moved into town and immediately ground his life’s work into itty bitty pieces, but that’s water under the bridge now. What’s so terrible about being a good neighbor?”

Gereon sighs. “I apologize. But I have had my share of… interactions with the young man, and I haven’t found him to be all that pleasant.”

“Perhaps you should work a little harder, then,” Felix snaps, and leaves his father standing in the corridor with his mouth ajar and snowmelt dripping into little puddles from the hem of his wool coat.

He storms back into the library—discreetly, he was never one for stomping or slamming doors—and gets an eyeful of Carver Hawke’s underwear-clad arse as he pulls his jeans up over his hips. He stutters to a halt, mind wiped blank. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize—”

Carver turns leisurely, still fastening his zip. What a bloody tease. “That’s fine, I didn’t warn you. I, ah, thought it would be best if I left.”

“What?”

Carver looks uncomfortable. “I mean, your dad... I know he doesn’t approve of me, and I don’t want to cause trouble...”

“Trouble?” Felix laughs. “There is no trouble. I’m an adult, I’m perfectly capable of having friends over if I choose. Stranded in bad weather or otherwise.”

“Weather’s not so bad anymore,” Carver says with a shrug. “I figure I can walk home and get a tow in the morning. If you don’t mind the rust bucket stationed outside your place.” 

Felix wants to protest, but he knows Carver is looking for an out and it would be selfish to keep him here when he feels uncomfortable. He nods. “All right. Let me get your coat from Birdie, I’m sure it’s dry by now.” 

Carver trails after him to the laundry room, and though there’s no sign of his father, they’re quiet as they retrieve Carver’s coat from the dryer and determine it ready to wear again. Felix walks him to the front door, hands in his pockets, feeling as if there’s a wealth of things unsaid hanging blatantly between them. Carver puts his hand on the door. 

“Well,” he says, not looking over his shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe, if the roads are clear by then.”

“Please be safe,” Felix replies. It comes out sounding a great deal more anxious than he meant it to, but there’s no help for it now. “Walking, I mean.”

“Better than driving,” Carver says cheerfully, and then he’s gone, forging out into the white wasteland. The wind slices through the door and straight through Felix like a knife, and he slams it shut in a hurry. 

He stands there for a long time, just staring at the polished wood and wondering whether it was all a dream. 

* * *

_dear friend,_

_I’ve come to a conclusion and I hope you find it acceptable: I want to try meeting again. I know that the last time was frightening—it was for me, too, trust me—but the more I think about it, the more I realize that some things are more important than fear. One of them being the potential for companionship._

_I’ve been single for a while. I tried relationships after the dust had settled from the war and from my parents’ passing, but no matter how hard I tried—and I tried—I couldn’t find someone that fit so perfectly with me in every way. Granted, we haven’t really seen one another face to face, but whenever we speak online I feel like I’m talking to my other half. Last time you said let’s do something special for the holidays. But maybe it doesn’t need to be complicated._

_Tomorrow is the day before Satinalia. It’s going to be stupidly cold, especially at the little park between Sutton Place and Hightown Main, but I will be walking Brinkley there like I do every day around three in the afternoon. If you would like to, please come. I would love to see you._

_Yours, in spite of everything,_

_bp3_


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the big reveal

**My darling,**

**Is that too forward? If it is, I’m sorry, but I was so happy to receive your email today. I have been trying to think of a way to ask for another chance, and here you’ve dropped one right into my lap like a Satinalia present.**

**I think you’re right, about last time. I was trying too hard. I had a perfect image in my mind of what we would be together, and the truth is I can’t be sure if that picture I had is even achievable. But even if it isn’t, there will be other things to achieve, other milestones, other moments we can share and collect until we have something worth cherishing. And it starts here, behind this computer screen, in trails of numbers and data that I can barely comprehend. I’m an excellent mathematician, but I could never formulate the way we fit together, or try to understand the angles of our meeting. You are everything I hoped for in a person to spend my life with. Whatever happens next, I want you to know that.**

**So yes. I will be there tomorrow, at three o’clock sharp. I can’t wait to see you.**

**Yours, e_p.**

///

The day before Satinalia Carver is a bundle of nerves. He takes Brinkley on his pre-breakfast walk, studiously avoiding Hightown Square—out of superstition or out of nerves he isn’t sure—and then again in the middle of the morning, despite the mabari’s confusion. Around eleven he finally breaks. He showers thoroughly, dresses in casual slacks and a button down that’s a little too soft and well-worn for a normal workday, and takes the Underground to the office just to keep his mind occupied until three o’clock. 

Reception is still there for their half day, and Isabela blows him a kiss as he walks to the elevator. The ride and the change of scenery, more normal to him in the middle of the week than the inside of his own apartment, is already starting to soothe his jumbled thoughts, and he’s almost calm when he puts his hand on the door to his office and pushes his way inside on silent hinges. 

And stops short. Across the room, bent over a drafting table, is Felix. For a moment, Carver almost doesn’t recognize him. Technically he’s seen him in his pjs, but this is something entirely different--instead of his usual three-piece suit, he’s wearing a heather-grey Henley with _MinU_ stamped on the front above a symbol of a coiled snake about to strike, and a slim pair of close-cut jeans that hug his hips and calves in a very… aesthetically pleasing way. With his sleeves rolled up and his glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose, he looks like an advert for a style magazine. He looks… _hot_. Really hot.

Carver wants to eat him whole. 

He clears his throat, forgetting he was just standing there like a creeper, and Felix startles, jumping upright like a gunshot had gone off and putting a hand to his breast. 

“Carver! Maker’s balls, you scared me half to death.” 

Carver wants to say something clever, but he’s suddenly overcome by a storm of giggles. He leans against the door frame and lets it work itself out while Felix looks on, mock-annoyance fading to bemusement, and finally gets himself under control. “Sorry, I just—didn’t think you even knew words like that.”

“Like what? Oh, balls?” He snorts. “I don’t know where you got this idea that I’m some blushing virgin, but I assure you it’s far from true.”

Carver shakes his head. “Right. Sorry. It’s just that you exude this… aura of… _purity_ …”

“Yeah, okay, fuck off,” Felix says goodnaturedly. “What are you doing here, anyway? Don’t you know we have the day off?”

“I could ask the same of you, smartarse,” Carver mutters. “But if you must know, I’m meeting my… online friend later today, and I’m trying to take my mind off it in every possible way.” 

“Ohhhh,” Felix says, looking suspiciously innocent of all duplicity. “Nervous?”

“Yes, very much if you must know.” He sits at his desk and puts his head in his hands. “I’m meeting Bethy for coffee after in case it goes horribly wrong and I need an out, but I hope that won’t be necessary.” 

“I’m sure it won’t be,” Felix says encouragingly. “I would offer to lurk in the background and make sure all goes well, but I promised my father I’d have tea with him this afternoon. It’s our little pre-Satinalia ritual.” 

A chill overwhelms him at these words, rippling from head to toe like an unexpected draft. What if he’s wrong? What if Felix is just Felix, and all of this is just some outrageously improbable coincidence? 

“Speaking of,” Felix says, breaking him out of his terror, “did your brother tell you he invited us over tomorrow?”

“For brunch?” Carver asks, surprised. “No he didn’t.” 

“Ah. Well. He did.” Felix shuffles his feet, embarrassed. “Hopefully that isn’t too much of a trial.”

“Why would it be?” Carver asks, more calmly than he feels. “I enjoy your company. And Gare can entertain your father so I can avoid the worst of his glares.” 

“Ha! That’s true.” Felix pushes away from the drafting table and walks in his direction. Unprepared for this level of proximity—it’s always been an unspoken rule that they remain at least ten feet apart from one another at all times while in the office—Carver watches him come, the casual tuck of his hands in his pockets, the subtle sway of his hips. He stops in front of Carver’s desk and folds his arms in front of his chest. “Look. Neither of us are going to get any work done—we’re just going to sit and gossip and wile away the hours, so we might as well do it somewhere comfortable. Take me to lunch.” 

“You’re asking me to buy you lunch?”

“Extended apology, part two. Remember?” 

Stunned by his boldness, and perhaps a little envious, Carver stands and grabs his coat. “All right. Come on, I know a nice place around the corner from here.”

“Not Sabrae?” Felix exclaims in mock surprise, fingertips against his sternum. 

“Sabrae is excellent, obviously, but we don’t want to get tired of it, do we? Come on, I promise you’ll like it.” 

“Humph. Fine.” In spite of his protests, Felix is smiling as he fetches his own coat and keys. 

_Maker, let it be him. Please. I don’t think I could bear it if it wasn’t._

///

Lunch is perfect. Beyond perfect. Carver takes them to a hole-in-the-wall place that would look more apt on a Lowtown side street, with grimy windows and tiny tables wedged under a low, dark-beamed roof straight out of the last Age. It markets itself as Nevarran, but the menu is heavily influenced by Tevinter, and as Felix proclaims—mouth full and eyes wide in surprise and ecstasy—is very, very authentic. And delicious. In spite of his nerves, which rise and fall like the Waking Sea with every lull in the conversation, Carver eats every scrap on his plate and puts away two pints of imported Anderfels lager to boot, and they spend the next two hours talking about everything and nothing under the sun. Felix is drowsy and quick to laugh when he’s full of good food and a few glasses of red, and every time their feet knock together under the little table, Carver is harder and harder pressed to pull away again. 

But eventually, Felix glances at his watch and sighs, and Carver is pulled out of his pleasant, carb-induced haze to return to reality. “It’s getting on. I should find my way home—if I can even walk,” he says accusingly, putting one hand to his stomach. “You’ve stuffed me fuller than a Satinalia goose, Carver Hawke.”

“It’s all part of my evil plan,” Carver says solemnly. 

“What evil plan? Oh, is _this_ why we’re invited to brunch tomorrow?”

“I’ll never tell.” Still, he looks at his own watch and feels a sharp stab of panic at the numbers that peer back. 2:25. Has time really gone so quickly? “I should go too, actually. Let me just settle the bill.” 

There aren’t any leftovers to box up, so Felix trails after him to the cashier and then out into the bright, frigid afternoon. In spite of the approaching moment of truth, Carver walks slowly to the nearest Underground stop, reluctant to part from Felix’s easy company. The closer three o’clock gets, the more terrified he is that he’s imagined all of this. That Felix has no connection to [euclidean_playa], and his sudden infatuation with him is entirely foundless. And, worse, what if they’re two different men that are both equally sweet and easy to be with? How will he be able to choose? There’s a slow, sick realization dawning that maybe he should just forget the meeting today entirely. That is an unknown, with no guarantee of success. This, here, with Felix at his side and the promise of friendship developing into something more, is real. Concrete. Not a silly fancy conjured out of instant messages and late nights with no one’s company but each other. As they come to the Underground station, Carver’s steps slow even further, and Felix notices. 

“Hey. Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out.”

“I can’t know that for sure,” Carver whispers, staring at his shoes. “Fee…”

Felix takes a quick, surprised breath at the nickname, something Carver has heard Isabela use frequently but has never had cause to use himself. “Carver. Don’t back out now. You’re so close.” 

“But I don’t—what if he’s not what I hoped he would be? What if I’ve just invented everything, out of loneliness and… and stupidity? No, hang on, just…” He rubs the back of his neck, and Felix falls silent, brushed off by Carver’ babbling. “If this doesn’t turn out the way I hope, will you... could we…”

Felix smiles, stepping forward to knock their elbows together. It’s a surprisingly intimate gesture—the first time they’ve ever touched, aside from one impersonal handshake that Carver can now scarcely remember. “One step at a time, Hawke. I’ll talk to you later, yeah? Thanks for lunch. I had a lovely time.”

And then he peels away toward his side of the rail, leaving Carver cold and bereft in his sudden absence. 

///

Brinkley is waiting eagerly when he comes home, more than ready for his afternoon walk in spite of the two he’s already had. Carver changes _again_ , feeling more like Bethy than he ever has, into his favorite pair of black jeans—that make his arse look “amazing,” according to Isabela—and a warm charcoal sweater. He spends long enough dithering over a scarf that he forgoes it entirely, shrugging into his coat and shoes and whistling for Brinkley all in a rush. 

Outside, the winter wind bites deeply into his cheeks, and he hunches his chin down and wishes he’d brought a scarf after all. Unsurprisingly, the sidewalks are deserted, and only a few cars whisper past, their treads softened by the layer of snow packed deeply into the tarmac. Brinkley bounces ahead of him happily, tugging a bit on the lead but not actively trying to twist his arm out of its socket, and Carver settles into the rhythm of it—the stop and go, waiting for him to pee on every damn shrub and excess lump of snow, et cetera. The familiarity of it is soothing, and although his belly still bubbles with anxiety, it’s calmer now than it was twenty minutes ago.

Soon they turn the corner onto Hightown Main, which is divided into two different flows of traffic by a strip of park lined with trees. In the summer it’s like verdant velvet, with little plots of flowers and plenty of benches, but now it’s just a snowy scrap of land with a path half-heartedly plowed through the middle. It curves and winds with the road, which is far from perfectly straight—it’s as old as the city itself, and moves with the lay of the land instead of against it—and Carver forces himself not to rush, just stroll along leisurely as he normally would.

Then, without any warning, Brinkley gets a whiff of something interesting. In a trice he’s slipped his collar and is off running, bounding along the deserted path with his nose to the ground and his little stub of a tail wiggling furiously with delight. Carver groans.

“Brinkley! Damn it, dog, if you run into the road and get hit Bethy will never forgive me.” He breaks into a gentle trot, trying to keep him in sight, but the road—and the park—curve suddenly, and the cluster of snow-laden trees soon block the view. “Brinkley! Brinks, get back here!”

He picks up the pace, and a second later rounds the corner and stops so fast he nearly skids to his knees in the snow. On the other side of the park, near the sign for Sutton Place, is Felix, hunkered down on his haunches and rubbing Brinkley’s ears while the dog leans into it, tongue lolling happily. Carver’s heart stops, then starts again—he looks around, but the park is completely deserted except for them. There’s no mistaking it. He was right after all. _Thank the Maker._ He breathes deeply, exhaling in a plume of white, and trudges through the thin layer of snow with only one thing in his head.

“I knew. I fucking _knew_ , you bastard!”

Felix stands, looking torn between laughing and crying, and Brinkley scampers off to sniff a nearby tree. “Are you very upset with me?”

“Upset? No, I’m fucking ecstatic.” He comes to a stop a few feet away, wanting desperately to close the distance but not yet sure if he’s welcome. “I hoped it was you—I wanted it to be you so badly, Fee.” He huffs a self-conscious laugh and rubs his face with his free hand. “When did you figure it out? The museum?”

“The museum,” Felix says almost in the same breath. “Maker, I was terrified. Dorian had to bully me just to go over and speak to you, and I couldn’t even tell you it was me. I’m sorry for deceiving you,” he adds, shamefaced. “At first I was just too scared, and then… I didn’t want you to find out until the very last moment. I was afraid that if you knew, you… wouldn’t show.”

“Are you kidding?” Carver exclaims. “The two men I’ve been falling in love with turning out to be the same person? That’s just… divine providence. You wouldn’t have been able to keep me away.”

“Falling in love?” Felix echoes softly. “Truly?”

“Well, yes. Sorry, that’s rather a lot all at once, isn’t it?”

“I love you too, actually,” Felix says in a rush. He’s blushing, though that might just be the stinging winter air, so unlike Ferelden’s rainy damp it makes Carver’s teeth ache.

His churning belly has calmed, and he’s feeling just levelheaded enough to ask, quietly, “Is it all right if I kiss you?”

He can practically see the breath being stolen from Felix’s lungs. “Please.”

He needs no more encouragement. Felix enfolds himself readily into the circle of his arms, and Carver leans down just a little, enough to brush a soft kiss against those upturned lips. Felix hums, opens against him—their tongues flirt and find each other as Carver pulls him tight against his body. “Felix,” he whispers, pulling back a moment before swooping in again to burrow a kiss beneath the cowl of his scarf. Felix shivers and laughs, but doesn’t pull away, only sighs when Carver sucks a pale mark into the fragrant skin of his throat. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”

“So have I,” Felix admits with a slight sniffle. His lips are even fuller from their kisses, and his nose is running a bit. Carver feels like his chest might burst. “Or, well, for approximately… three weeks.”

Carver does the mental math. “When I started at AAC? But I was completely horrible to you—which I’m sorry for, by the way.”

“No, hush, it’s fine. It wasn’t completely undeserved.” Both his hands are free, leaving him able to cup Carver’s face between his palms and lean up for another kiss, warm and damp and perfect. “And just because you were a bit of a twat doesn’t mean you weren’t utterly gorgeous. I wanted to kiss you that very first day. Smack you first, probably. Then kiss you.”

Carver chokes back laughter. “Should I brace myself?”

“Not for a smack,” Felix assures him, mouth turning up in a sly smile. “Kisses? Yes. Lots of those.”

“Oh good. I was rather looking forward to that part.” Their noses are brushing again, and it’s so easy to kiss him, to part his plush mouth with his tongue and taste him. They’re lucky it’s so cold, Carver thinks—the park is mostly deserted, and he doesn’t feel awkward about snaking his hand down and gripping Felix’s delightful arse. Felix moans, and the vibration travels along Carver’s tongue like an electric shock. He wants to delve deeper, push harder, but a sudden gruff bark and the weight of a full-grown mabari leaning against his leg pulls him back.

“Dammit,” he sighs, but he’s grateful that Brinkley didn’t crash into them in his excitement. He leans down to ruffle the dog’s silky ears and when he stands up, Felix is smiling besottedly at him. “So, uh,” he says, feeling foolish, “my apartment is just around the corner. Did you want to maybe come over? For… coffee. And things.”

“Things?” Felix echoes, smirking again. He licks his lips, and unconscious or not, the movement draws Carver’s eyes like metal to a magnet.

“Yeah. I have a really fantastic espresso machine.”

Felix smiles and it’s like the sun. “That sounds nice. Lead on.” He steps back, out of the circle of Carver’s arm, but reaches down to tangle their hands together. It’s so perfectly natural and _right_ that for a moment Carver can’t breathe. Then Brinkley lips at his coat and he feels halfway normal again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a liiiiittle bit shorter than usual, but hopefully it was still enjoyable! Two chapters of solid porn coming right up, and then a holiday coda to wrap it up. Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Also am I just going crazy, or did AO3 remove the line break in the formatting page? I can't find it?? Which is super annoying, sorry if my little backslashes are weird to look at.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just smut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big hugs and thanks to earlgreyer, as always, for letting me bounce ideas off her and also for fact-checking my blowjob scenes. <3

Carver wasn’t lying—his place is literally around the corner, but the walk feels interminable. In a good way. Felix’s hand is warm and smooth in his, thumbs hooking perfectly together like their hands were measured to fit, and the silence they carry is warm and fond, empty of the weight of expectation. Carver only releases him to unlock the front door, and they clatter up the stairs with Brinkley at their heels. Inside his flat, he unhooks the leash and puts food and fresh water in the dishes by the door, and then with the dog occupied he can finally turn to take Felix in entirely.

Felix is… distracted.

“Oh, right. I forget you haven’t been here yet.” He strides to the massive windows and pulls open the shades, flooding the main room with crisp, cool afternoon daylight. “So, uh, this is my apartment.”

“It’s fantastic,” Felix says. He drifts to the futon sitting square in the middle of the room and lets his hands settle on the back, feeling the textures of the knobbly hand-knit throw that Bethy gifted him last Satinalia. “There’s so much light, and room. It’s just you living here?”

“Yeah. For a couple years now. Bethy and I roomed together for a little while before this, after we took over the business, but it was high time we got our own spaces. We get… fidgety, working in close quarters. Living together on top of that was just outrageous.” He’s babbling, he realizes, but Felix doesn’t seem to notice.

“I love it. I’m… incredibly jealous, actually.” He laughs, a little self-consciously. “I’ve been looking around for my own place, but nothing’s quite felt right yet, and Dad isn’t all that eager for me to move out yet.”

“There’s no rush,” Carver says, trying to prevent himself from inviting Felix to move in right that second. _Slow down, Hawke, one step at a time._ “Have you ever lived on your own before?”

“In uni, but I don’t think that counts.” He looks over the kitchen, with the loft breaking up the empty space between floor and ceiling. “What’s up there?”

“I used to work from home a lot,” Carver explains. “My ‘office’ is upstairs.” He laughs at the painfully curious expression on Felix’s face. “Go ahead and snoop if you like, I don’t mind.”

When Felix bolts for the stairs, Carver lets him go, making his own way to the kitchen. It’s spic and span for once, thankfully, though he’s not sure he can say the same for the loft—he doesn’t think he made his bed this morning, and there’s at least one pair of dirty underwear in the laundry basket, but it’s too late to worry about it. If they’re going to be… _together…_ then Felix is just going to have to cope with the occasional clutter. The thought sends a pleasant shiver through him, and he busies himself with the espresso machine.

From overhead there comes a cry of delight. “You have a wood stove?”

“It’s kind of a necessity in the winter,” Carver calls back, smiling to himself. “The heating in this building is finicky. It was one of the areas hit hard during the war and some of the ice spells haven’t completely faded.” He pauses, but there’s no immediate reply, so he pours the beans in the grinder and flicks it on. The fresh, aromatic smell hits him a moment later, and he pours out the soy milk and sets up two shot glasses. While the espresso trickles out, hot and dark with a rich crema, he froths the milk and prepares two small ceramic cups. He’s just finished mixing the miniature lattes with a tiny silver spoon when he feels two arms slide around his waist and a cold nose press against the back of his neck. He smiles down at the countertop. “Hello there.”

“Hello,” Felix murmurs back. “Your apartment is gorgeous.” A brief kiss to his nape, and his stomach swoops. “So are you, incidentally.”

“So complimentary,” Carver teases. He turns in Felix’s arms, coffee forgotten, and lets his hands rest easily on his slim hips. “You like it, then?”

“Your workspace is lovely. It’s a shame you’re not able to use it as much now—might have to do something about that.” He lifts his chin and busses a kiss to Carver’s lips. “I didn’t realize your bedroom was up there, too.”

“Yeah. Sorry about the mess.”

“Pshh. It’s lovely. Cozy.” It’s hard to tell with his eyes so dark already, but Carver thinks his pupils are dilated. “Very… inviting.”

“In that case, consider yourself invited.” Oh, Maker, what happened to _slow down_? “I, er, if that’s not too forward. I mean.”

Felix grins at him: a slow, predatory grin that does funny things to the pit of his stomach. “Not too forward at all.” He rocks up onto his toes, and Carver practically bashes their noses together trying to kiss back. Felix chuckles low in his throat and takes control, sliding his fingers into Carver’s hair and holding him tight right where he wants him.

It’s not a polite kiss meant for public consumption; it’s deep and wet, full of low, delicious sounds and the smack and slip of their lips and tongues. Felix presses him against the counter and _devours_ him, and in turn Carver slides his hands around and cups his arse to pull them flush together. It’s a very nice arse, perfect for kneading and squeezing, and with every pass of their tongues, Carver fancies he can feel Felix growing harder against his thigh. Carver’s more than halfway there himself—the taste of him, the feel and smell of him are sinking into his bones, leaving him breathless and desperate. When Felix tears away only to dive beneath his collar and bite sweetly at his collarbone, Carver hisses and pulls him closer, and the shift of their hips pushes Felix’s cock into perfect alignment with Carver’s. Blood thrumming, he grinds against him without thinking.

“Oh, fuck,” Felix breathes. He meets Carver’s eyes very deliberately as he circles his hips in a slow, provocative frot that sizzles deep into the base of his spine. A needy sound escapes him, a low and growly in the base of his throat, and Felix arches into him. “Maker, Carv, you feel so blessed good.”

“Again, please,” he begs, fingers digging deeply enough that he can feel the crease of Felix’s arse through jeans and underwear.

Felix licks his lips. “I will if you put your hand down the back of my pants.”

Carver is happy to take that deal. He rucks up Felix’s shirt hastily and manages to fit a few fingers down the back, but the waistband is too snug for more. He strokes what skin he can find and mouths at the side of his neck as Felix fumbles with button and zip, finally creating enough slack that Carver can fit two hands beneath the elastic of his briefs. Boxer-briefs, he amends, as his fingertips brush between his cheeks and Felix bucks forward with a strangled sound. “All right?”

“Andraste’s flaming pyre, _yes_.”

Then they’re kissing again, hungry for each other, and Carver is hard pressed not to push his fingers hard against Felix’s perineum and just _take_. To stay himself, he withdraws his left hand and slides it up Felix’s warm, smooth back, palm gliding eagerly over muscle and bone and back again. His other thumb fits neatly in the slight groove just below Felix’s sacrum. It’s soft and slightly damp, and when he digs in a bit Felix breaks away long enough to gasp, “I’m clean. I mean—in both senses of the word.” He’s blushing, and his lower lip is shiny and plump. Carver leans in to suck on it, and feels the words against his lips when Felix murmurs, “I like to be prepared.”

Carver groans against his mouth. “Maker, Fee, you’re killing me.” His thumb slips deeper, into the hot and damp, until he can feel his twitching hole against the knuckle. Felix whines and bucks into the pressure, forward and back, and Carver thinks he’s never seen or felt anything so beautiful.

“Please, Carv,” he whispers, brushing the words against his cheek like a caress. “I need you.”

He doesn’t think he can manage stairs right now. “Get on the couch,” he rasps, and Felix scrambles to obey. Carver follows, adjusting himself in his jeans as he goes, and crawls over Felix on hands and knees, his hand rubbing at the bulge straining up from Felix’s briefs. Felix whines and kicks his hips up, straining toward another kiss.

“Please, oh, Maker _please_ …”

“Please what?” Carver murmurs. He parts the open placket of Felix’s jeans and scoops inside, fondling his balls and kneading a firm rhythm at the root of his cock where it’s outlined against the cotton. For ages he’s wanted to do this, before he even knew the man behind the screenname, and now he actually _can_. Felix presses his knees open wider and reaches for him, fingers grasping at his shirt.

“Kiss me.”

Carver obeys readily, kissing him open-mouthed and sloppy, tongues rolling together and his hand massaging Felix’s stiff cock until he can feel the damp spot where he’s leaking through his briefs. Felix makes a strangled sound through his nose and hooks one leg around Carver’s waist, inviting—Carver can smell him, the heat and musk rising like a summer storm rolling in off the ocean. He moans into Felix’s mouth and drags himself away by the skin of his teeth.

“Hang on,” he gasps, when Felix reaches for the zip of his jeans. “Just…”

Felix subsides, licking his lips. “Something wrong?” His hand stills, and moves instead to rub circles on Carver’s back.

“No, I just… don’t you think this is sort of… fast? I mean, I’m okay with it, I just want to make sure _you_ are.”

Felix deliberately slows his breath, head falling back onto the pillow as he gazes up at Carver. “It is fast,” he admits. His fingers on Carver’s flanks are grounding, soothing, a line drawn so taut between them that Carver can feel the thrum of tension in its length. “But it feels right. Does it feel right to you?”

“Maker’s tears, absolutely,” Carver sighs. He brushes the swell of Felix’s lower lip with his fingers, lightly. Against his touch, Felix smiles, purses his lips to kiss the digits that have typed out so many heartfelt messages in the last few months. So much waiting and building and thriving, all behind the mask of a computer screen, now exposed, laid bare to the consequent truth.

“Then get down here,” Felix whispers, and Carver must obey.

He lowers himself completely and grinds his hips down, mouth open and hot as he tastes Felix’s throat and collarbones. Felix seems content to let it happen, throwing his head back, digging his fingers into Carver’s hair to push him closer, rocking into the pressure with desperate abandon. But it’s not enough. Carver wants to touch his cock, wants to feel the slippery precum leaking out into his palm, and the angle and the shift of their clothes is making it impossible. He lifts away from Felix’s damp briefs and snaps the elastic with a frustrated growl.

“Take these off.”

“Yes.”

Felix lets his hands slide away from Carver’s back and pushes at his trousers, huffing in frustration when they resist his efforts. Carver dives in to assist, their hands knocking together a few times before he finally drags them off and throws them to the floor. He bends back down for more even as Felix struggles with the hem of his own shirt. The kisses are slower this time, frequently interrupted as they strip one another, but Carver can’t stop, can’t get enough—when Felix finally manages to tear his undershirt off his head, he’s back down immediately, his tongue pressing deeply into Felix’s welcoming mouth. He wants to do the same with his cock, later. Felix could take it. He thinks of Felix’s bashful confession, back when he was only a screenname and a generic icon— _I’ve always wanted to suck cock. I think I’d be good at it—_ and he groans, rutting their hips together with more purpose.

“Mngh,” Felix chokes, and now he’s got his legs wrapped around Carver’s waist, his underthings discarded and Carver’s prick barely contained by the fabric of his briefs. “Take these _bloody_ things off, I beg of you.”

It’s a struggle to part from him, but Carver manages it. Felix is sprawled on the futon, legs splayed without a single trace of shame, and he can see every inch of him: the dark hair clustered on his chest and around his prick, neatly trimmed, the taut shape of his bollocks where they’re drawn tight against his body, the desperate rise and fall of his diaphragm as he struggles to catch his breath. Seeing him looking, Felix traps his lower lip between his teeth and draws one studious finger from his sternum over his nipple and down, following the trail of hair to find the tip of his cock, fat and pink and leaking a little patch of wetness onto his belly. His prick is tilted slightly to the left, and when Felix teases the fingertip at the knot of his frenulum, Carver can clearly see the precum welling up fresh to spill against his skin.

“Fucking Void,” he sighs. He’s a little lightheaded, and he’s not sure if it’s because he hasn’t been breathing or because all the blood in his body has fled for more southern regions. He hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his briefs, following the grooves of the thick muscle in his hips, and drags them down to mid-thigh. His cock drops free, nearly purple, sagging well away from his belly under its own weight. Felix is definitely paying attention. With measured strokes, he drags the ring of his thumb and forefinger from base to tip. It only takes one pass—as his hand curls around the corona and squeezes lightly, a fat drop of precum oozes out and lands on Felix’s thigh.

Felix exhales harshly. “Maker fuck.”

“Yeah.” Carver breathes through his nose to try and regulate himself, but he can’t resist a few more strokes, dry but still electric with Felix’s dark eyes pinned to his every movement. “Um. Can I…”

“Yes. The answer is yes, whatever you want.”

Carver sinks his knees to the futon, edging in between Felix’s spread legs. “Can I suck your cock?”

The faint definition in Felix’s belly goes taut, the flush on his face springing up down his throat and chest, and for a minute Carver wonders if he’s about to come. But then he relaxes again, nodding, and he bends down to nuzzle the smooth plane of his stomach. His palm is still dry, sadly, but he wraps it around Felix’s prick anyway—and then gets derailed when he realizes it’s the first time he’s touched Felix this way. His cock is a little slimmer around than Carver’s, but just as long, with a deliciously loose foreskin that gives back and forth with every pass, and the head is firm and slick under his thumb. Felix’s mouth drops open further and his hips hitch, fucking into Carver’s fist once or twice before subsiding.

“I’m gonna cum if you keep doing that,” he warns, his voice descending to a throaty rumble.

“I want to taste you first. Is that okay?”

“Mmhm. I’m—I don’t have the papers with me, I’m sorry, but I got tested as part of the… nnnh… work visa process, and I’m—I’m clean, I…”

“Shh. I believe you. C’mere, darling.” He scoops his hands under Felix’s thighs, watching his cock bounce at the movement, and curls forward to run his nose up the underside. “Mmmm. You smell so good.”

“Carv.” Tentative fingers tangle in his hair, and Carver closes his eyes, proceeding entirely by feel. The skin under his lips is silky-smooth and warm, sliding easily over the iron-hard flesh beneath, and when he flicks his tongue out to taste, the bitter salt of precum blooms sharply across his tongue. He finds the thick vein and follows it, root to tip, and pauses to swirl around the frenulum a few times until fresh slick wells up, echoed by a soft whimper. He opens his eyes. Above him, Felix has one arm behind his head, fingers tangled in the throw pillow and his teeth sunk into his lower lip. Carver noses his prick, letting the slight stubble on his chin rub against Felix’s hipbone.

“Sweetheart,” he whispers, coaxing those sloe-dark eyes open. “You can hold onto my hair if you want. All right?”

“You sure?” Felix whispers, though his other hand is already snaking down his body. His fingers curl into the longer hair on top of Carver’s head and tug slightly, and Carver groans.

“Yeah. Like that.”

When Felix nods acknowledgement, he bends and laves the broad, flat width of his tongue from balls to corona in one swoop before taking the head in his mouth. He lets it rest just inside, lips curled around his teeth, and suckles gently. Felix whimpers and his fingers shake. With a low, satisfied hum, Carver curls his thumb and forefinger around the base of his cock for stability and sinks down.

It takes a few passes before he’s got the hang of it—he’s a bit out of practice—but then it’s _divine_. Felix is a perfect size, a bit on the long side but not so thick he’s difficult to take all the way, and he alternates long, slow swallows with more attention to the head: sucking on the foreskin, flicking his tongue against the frenulum, probing the slit in search of more flavor—and Felix has plenty of it. He hadn’t been lying when he said he leaked a lot when it was good, and Carver takes it as a compliment that the sharp taste of him never quite dissipates into skin and sweat.

Felix, meanwhile, grows a little bolder, gripping Carver’s hair with more determination and even rocking the slightest bit into Carver’s mouth—never enough to choke him, but just enough to ease the burden of keeping up a rhythm. His neck has barely started to get sore when Felix stills suddenly and chokes out, “Carv, oh, fuck—fuck, I’m gonna cum…”

Carver hums encouragement, too committed to pull off and tell him so with actual words, and presses down until his nose is flat against Felix’s pubic bone and he can feel the head sitting thick and comfortable just past his gag reflex. He swallows, lips tight around the base, and though he can’t _taste_ it, more’s the pity, he can feel the slight stiffening of Felix’s cock as he comes hard with a long, drawn-out cry.

He does choke a bit, then, when he pulls off, but it was worth it. He wipes his mouth and coughs a bit to clear his throat, stroking Felix’s thigh as he comes down. His hands have fallen from Carver’s hair, and he’s just lying flat on his back and breathing as if he’s just run a marathon, lobster-red from hairline to navel and gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat. Carver kisses the tip of his cock, a little _thank-you_ , and Felix sighs.

“Maker… Carver…”

“Mmm. One and the same, if I do say so myself.” He nibbles gently at a hipbone, humming when Felix cards a hand weakly through his hair. “All right, darling?”

“All… right? Fuck… Carver, that was fucking _amazing_.” He shivers slightly and tugs at Carver’s hair. “C’mere. Please. I wanna kiss you.”

“You can kiss me anytime, baby. I am at your disposal.” He pushes up on his hands and knees and kisses him, shallowly at first in case he’s put off by the taste of his own prick, but Felix is having none of it. He tangles his fingers in Carver’s hair and tugs him in close, foot sliding warmly against the back of his calf as he devours Carver’s mouth. Carver only pulls back when his chest starts to feel tight, and then he pants against the damp curve of Felix’s neck, trying to catch his breath.

“What about you?” Felix murmurs, slightly more coherent now. He rubs Carver’s back and kisses the side of his head. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fantastic.”

“You can lie down, you know. I won’t break.”

Carver’s not so sure about that, but he’s aching too desperately to argue. He shuffles down so that he’s lying half on Felix and half in the crook of the futon, groaning when his cock skids across Felix’s thigh.

“Mmmm, look at you,” Felix whispers. One arm is curled beneath Carver’s head, but the other hand is free, and it’s currently stroking a long, scintillating path up and down Carver’s flank, just inches from his erection. “You’re so gorgeous, you know that? Maker, when you asked me to have coffee with you in the museum café I wanted to get on my knees and suck you off right there.”

Carver makes a strangled sound, somewhere between moan and sigh, and rubs his open mouth against Felix’s jaw. “Fee…”

“Can I?” he breathes, knuckles trailing ever so slightly along the curve of Carver’s prick. “Will you tell me what to do for you, baby?”

“Yes,” Carver gasps. He feels like melted butter, hot and bubbly and loose, as Felix slides down his body, still on his side against the cushions. Felix curls his knees up to avoid hanging off the end of the futon and takes Carver’s fat, drooling cock in his hand.

“Fuck, Carv. You weren’t actually lying, were you.”

“Lying… about what?” he asks, resting a trembling hand against Felix’s hair.

“You’re enormous.” He licks his lips and looks up at him through his lashes. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to take all of you inside me.”

Carver covers his face with his free hand. Maker save him from clever, seductive men with lovely eyes who know just what to say to drive him crazy. “You don’t have to,” he mumbles. “I actually prefer… um… your hand, around the base, and then just…”

Felix doesn’t even let him finish, just wraps his hand around Carver and guides him into his mouth. The head is a little smaller than the shaft at its widest point, and Felix can fit his mouth around it easily, tongue swirling and flicking energetically—a little _too_ energetically.

“Slower,” he coaxes, thumb drawing small circles against the hinge of his jaw. Felix obeys instantly, painting tortuous circles ’round the head of his cock with his tongue. “Fuck, darling, your mouth is exquisite. Yeah, suck me just like that. _Maker_.”

Felix responds well to praise, Carver soon finds. His eyes darken with every word that falls from Carver’s lips, and he pushes himself farther, drawing his mouth along the first few centimeters of Carver’s shaft. “Gorgeous,” Carver breathes. “Yeah, _fuck_ , yeah. Fee, oh, Maker you’re brilliant.”

When Felix tires, Carver coaxes him back with a hand to his nape, and the saliva he leaves behind is enough to ease the slide of his hand. His lips are cherry-red and slick, and he rubs them back and forth across the head of Carver’s prick as he works his hand a little faster, a little tighter. Carver groans and tries not to thrust up into his grip, cautious of bruising that lovely mouth any further.

“Baby,” he whispers, when Felix’s patient ministrations grow too much. “I’m getting close, love.”

Felix’s eyelids flutter at the endearment, and he moans encouragement, sticking out his tongue for Carver to frot against as his hand works him to the edge. That slick, textured pressure at the underside of his cock is suddenly more than he can take.

“Fee, sweetheart, I’m gonna cum. I’m going to—oh, fuck— _fuck_ …”

Felix makes no move to pull away. When Carver comes moments later, it paints his lips and cheek in strands of white, two hard pulses and a few weaker aftershocks that dribble over Felix’s hand and down his shaft. Felix licks his lips, guileless, and Carver bites down hard on his knuckle to keep from crying out.

“Beautiful,” Felix whispers at last. He wipes gingerly at his face, and Carver bats his hands away to do it himself—but when he moves to wipe the stuff onto his thigh to wash off later, Felix grabs his wrist and sucks his fingers into his mouth, one at a time, until every last trace is gone. Carver groans and slumps back against the pillow.

“Maker.”

“Was it good?” Felix asks shyly, crawling up the length of his body to tuck in beside him. The futon is good-sized, but two full-grown men are a bit much for it, and Carver slings one arm securely around Felix’s body to keep him anchored close.

“Good? Sweetheart, that was _exquisite_. You are… Maker… just perfect.” He swallows back the _I love you_ that wants to trip out, still a little nervous about using those precious words so freely, and leans in for a kiss. Felix returns it readily, eager to slide their tongues together, and Carver grips him ever harder against his side.

Maker, he’s so far gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and round two tomorrow. thanks for reading! :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written with the help of [this](http://ytonlinenow.com/watch/T3gXGTsPHU4/male-moaning-6.html) delightful sound clip; thank you earlgreyer for the tip ;). Pop your headphones in and give it a listen! This chapter includes rimming and anal sex, so if either of those things squick you, be warned.

Eventually, they drag themselves off the futon. Carver pulls his smalls back on, to Felix’s disappointment, and reheats their miniature lattes while Felix uses the loo and stares at himself in the mirror for a few minutes, grinning goofily at the delightful marks Carver has left on his neck and shoulder. When he comes back out, redressed in his briefs and nothing else, he can hear Carver moving around upstairs—the whoosh and snap of fresh sheets, the thunk of the little ceramic cups on the side table, the soft curse and thud when he trips over something. Their discarded clothes have been moved, Felix notes, presumably up to the loft. Smiling to himself, he skims up the stairs in search of his… something. Well. _That_ needs to be rectified as soon as possible.

“Carv?”

“Yeah?” He’s bent over, busily tucking hospital corners into the foot of his bed. Felix stands back and just watches, admiring the view.

“What should I call you?”

Carver punches the mattress back into place and straightens up, a little pink in the face. He gets pinker when Felix lets his eyes wander leisurely down his bare chest—so wonderfully broad and sprinkled liberally with freckles—to the comfortable bulge in his briefs, generous even when soft and carried slightly to the right. “Er. What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Felix murmurs, prowling closer, “what is our _status_? Friends? Lovers? Paramours?” He steps into Carver’s personal space, not close enough to touch but close enough to feel the heat radiating off him. “Boyfriends?”

Carver licks his lips. “I’d like that. Boyfriends, that is.” He smiles, a bit bashfully, and his enormous hands come up to press at his back until Felix is coaxed gently into standing flush together, belly to belly and their feet straddling one another on the rug. “Will you be my boyfriend, Felix?”

“Yes, please.” Felix leans up and Carver leans down, and their mouths press together comfortably, as if they’ve kissed one another like this every day of their lives. _I want that_ , he thinks to himself, staggered by the suddenness of it. _I want to kiss him like this every day for the rest of our lives._

“Fee?” He slides a hand up Felix’s spine and cradles the back of his head, hovering a few breaths away. “All right? I lost you for a second there.”

“I’m excellent,” he whispers, not quite a lie. “I think I could go for that espresso now, though.”

“Perfect. Let me just start the fire.”

Felix climbs into bed while he does this, bounding onto the mattress and burrowing down beneath the covers immediately. It’s a very Ferelden bed, no frame, just a thick, stodgy, decadent mattress on top of a box spring and piled high with quilts and a faux fur blanket. There are plenty of pillows, too, and Felix flops against them and sips at his espresso while Carver coaxes the wood stove to life. Felix has enough mana running under his skin to help the process along, but he doesn’t. It seems the sort of thing that Carver prefers to do by hand.

When the fire is lit and crackling merrily, Carver dusts his hands off and crawls gingerly into bed, careful to avoid jostling Felix’s coffee. They cuddle together while they drink, trading espresso-flavored kisses and just enjoying the quiet crackling of the fire. Eventually Felix sets his empty cup aside and curls into him more fully, tracing the contours of Carver’s ribs with light fingers. Carver makes a subtle coughing sort of sound and twitches away. Felix hesitates.

“Carv… are you…”

“Don’t even say it.”

“ _Ticklish_?”

“Fee…” Carver warns, already setting his own cup aside in preparation. Taking this as permission, Felix pounces. Carver jerks away again, snorting with laughter as he scrambles for the end of the bed, and Felix pursues him, dancing his fingertips up and down his sides and poking his belly until he squirms. “Fee! Stoppit!”

“Never,” Felix purrs, straddling Carver’s hips and pinning him against the blankets with two hands braced against his shoulders. “Hold still.”

His diaphragm is still bouncing with repressed giggles, but Carver obeys, holding his breath and staring up at him with wide eyes. With a delicate touch, Felix trails his hands down Carver’s pectorals and over his belly to rub the sharply-defined V of his hipbones. The breath punches out of Carver’s lungs and he lets his hips twitch up slightly. Against his arse, protected only by two layers of cotton, Felix can feel him starting to get hard. He hitches his pelvis forward and back the lightest bit and scritches his nails into the trail of hair disappearing into Carver’s smalls.

“So soon?” he murmurs, delighting in the pink flush that springs so readily to Carver’s skin. “I’m flattered.”

“You should be. You’re gorgeous,” Carver says frankly. He slides his hands up Felix’s thighs, rubbing lightly but not gripping or controlling him. “Look at you.”

Felix bites his lower lip with only a _little_ bit of calculation, glancing coquettishly from under his lashes. “I would, but I’d rather look at _you_.” He walks his fingers up Carver’s flat belly and circles his nipples, little slow movements that echo the shifting of his hips. “You weren’t lying when you said you looked like a god.”

“Oh, please. I was being facetious.”

“Shh. Take the compliment, darling man.” Felix leans down, consciously pressing his arse down into Carver’s half-hard prick, and brushes their mouths together with feather-light intent.

_Bang bang bang!_

He rockets upright again at the sound of someone pounding on the door, and Carver comes with, half-propped on one elbow and mouth open in surprise. “Who on earth…?”

“Carver Hawke!” comes the faint voice—definitely female and definitely irritated. “You’d better have a damn good reason for standing me up at our coffee date, and that damn good reason had better not be that you’ve been murdered by your creepy internet stalker boyfriend!”

Carver groans and covers his face with one hand. “Bethy. I forgot about our coffee date.”

“In case things went south,” Felix remembers aloud.

“Carver! Maker take you, I have a spare key and I _will_ use it. In fact, I _am_ using it, right now, and you’d better be in there and you’d better be alive!”

Carver scrambles upright and Felix tips onto his side, letting him go. “I’m alive! Maker, Bethy, I’m alive, okay? Don’t come upstairs, I’m coming, I’m—”

“Well you’re not cumming _now_ ,” Felix murmurs, watching from his sprawled position as Carver hops into his jeans. Downstairs, the door opens, and Carver snatches a shirt to pull on as he takes the stairs two at a time.

“Carver!” Bethany exclaims. “You _are_ alive.”

“Yes, yes, I’m alive,” Carver grumbles, voice slightly muffled by his shirt. “I was… napping. Sorry.”

“Napping? Are you serious? No text, no call, no _nothing_ —how did it go? Did you meet?”

“Yes, we met.”

“And?”

“It went… very well.”

Bethany squeals and claps her hands. “Really? Details! What does he look like? Was he sweet? Did you kiss him?”

“He’s incredibly handsome,” Carver says, a little bit too loudly. Felix grins and wriggles deeper into the deliciously soft faux fur blanket. “And he’s very sweet, and yes, we kissed. A lot.”

“And then? What, you just left him in the park and came home? Where did he go?”

Carver coughs. “He’s still here, in fact.”

There's a beat of silence. “Oh my god,” she whispers, so that Felix has to strain to hear. “Did I interrupt you? Oh Maker, Carv, I am _so_ sorry.”

“I mean, sort of,” Carver says, sounding like he's got a stuffy nose. “But it was round two, so don't feel too badly.”

“So that's why it smells like a brothel in here.”

“Bethy!”

She snickers, and so does Felix. Lying flat on the bed, he wiggles into a pair of Carver's sleep pants and pulls his own undershirt over his head before tiptoeing to the railing. Beth is facing away from him, and Carver is too busy scowling and looming to see him, so Felix leans against the rail and clears his throat. “Hello, Bethany.”

Beth whirls around and her mouth drops open. “What the fuck? Is this some kind of joke?”

Carver rubs his face wearily. “No, actually. Bethy, this is Felix, my... uh...”

“I know who he is,” Beth says, grinning fit to burst. “Felix Maker-blessed Alexius. You have _got_ to be fucking with me. Wait, are you telling me you two were talking online this whole time and you never even knew it?”

“That's about the size of it,” Felix admits.

“Maker, that is just precious. It's like something out of a rom-com.”

“Yes, okay, that's enough,” Carver says, herding her toward the door. “Very sorry about coffee, I'll make it up to you, now goodbye.”

“Bye brother dear!” she giggles. “Don't have too much fun! Don't forget brunch tomorrow, either, Garrett would never forgive you.”

Carver shuts the door immediately behind her and slumps against it with a sigh. “Maker.”

Felix drifts to the stairs and lowers himself to sit on the top one. “Er... sorry?”

“For what?” Carver pushes away from the door and walks up the stairs, smiling. When he gets close enough, he leans down to brace his hands to either side of Felix's hips, putting them nose to nose. “It had to happen sooner or later. Better now than... later.” Their mouths are a breath apart. Felix curls forward into it, catching his lower lip against Carver's philtrum, and they slide easily into a slow kiss. Carver hums and licks deeper, hotter, and Felix can feel himself growing hard again in his borrowed pajamas.

“Come back to bed,” Felix whispers against his lips.

“Well since you asked so nicely...”

Carver scoops him up like he weighs nothing and Felix's legs wrap instinctively around his waist. Smirking, Carver slides one hand down to grope his arse, and Felix sighs and rolls his hips forward into Carver's stomach.

“I’m _always_ nice. Oof!” The breath leaves him in a rush as Carver dumps him into the mattress and crawls right up to kiss him. All his complaints dissolve under the sweet, warm pressure of his mouth, and he hums when their tongues meet and slide together. “Mmmm.”

“Beautiful,” Carver whispers and dives back in, snaking one hand beneath the waistband of his smalls to squeeze his rear. “Maker, your ass is gorgeous.”

Felix grins up at him, lower lip slipping out from beneath his teeth. “Thanks.” He wriggles a little bit, and Carver grips him harder, fingers digging into firm flesh. Felix parts his lips. “Do you want to...” He hesitates, flushing. Carver grins.

“Do I want to what?” He leans down and brushes their noses together, lips only a breath apart. “Tell me.”

“I... Maker, I can't say it.” He laughs, strangled with self-consciousness. “Behind a computer screen I can be as filthy as I please, but in real life—”

“Shh. It's fine, darling. Working it out is the fun part.” He kisses him, deep and clinging, and drags his mouth away with some effort. “Let me tell you what I want, and you can say yes or no. Fair?”

Felix nods, russet skin gone ruddy. Carver licks his lips and drags his nose along his neck, breathing him in even as their bare bodies ghost against each other.

“I want to lick you open and taste every inch of you. I want to get you so slick and loose that when I finally push my fingers into you all you can feel is pleasure. And then I want to fuck you, slow and sweetly, for hours.” He bites gently at the tendon in his throat and sighs when Felix grips his shoulder with desperate fingers. “How does that sound to you?”

“Yes yes yes,” Felix babbles, hips gyrating uselessly against empty air. “Oh fuck, darling, yes I want that, all of it, all of _you_.”

“Roll over then, baby, and put your pretty ass in the air for me.”

Felix moves to obey so quickly that he nearly clocks him in the jaw with his elbow. Carver jerks back to avoid it, laughing, and kisses his apologies quiet. Together they divest him of his clothes, borrowed and otherwise. And then Felix is there, on his belly in Carver's bed, head pushed into the plump pillows and his cock swaying heavy between his legs as he waits for Carver to touch him. When there’s no immediate contact, he buries his head in the pillow and moans.

“What are you _doing_? Please, Carver, just touch me.”

“I’m sorry,” Carver rasps. “I was just… appreciating the view.”

Before Felix can muster a protest, Carver finally puts his hands on him, sliding up his back and down again to grip his hips and coax him to rock slightly back and forth. On the third or fourth pass, Felix can feel the firmness of Carver’s thigh against his arse and he grinds back with purpose, muffling a wanton noise into the pillow. He feels Carver lean away from him, hears the scrabbling in the bedside table, and then a small tube of lubricant is dropped onto the bedspread next to his elbow.

“That’s it, baby,” Carver whispers, one hand returning to the small of Felix’s back to guide him. “Push your ass against me. You like how that feels, sweetheart? D'you want more?”

“Yes,” Felix gasps, turning his head so he can speak with some degree of clarity. “Oh Maker, please.”

Carver finally takes pity on him, wriggling down on the mattress and cupping one arse cheek in his enormous hand. His thumb parts him and Felix can feel cool air against his hole, sparking a bright red flush in his cheeks and down his throat, and then Carver is nuzzling in close, leaving a damp trail of kisses and hot breaths across his sensitive skin. Felix sighs and widens his knees a little more. Then, light and wet, Carver’s tongue, a slight pressure between his cheeks as he tastes him slowly from perineum to tailbone.

“Fuck,” he says into the pillow, voice cracking. “Oh fucking Maker, _Carver…_ ”

He doesn’t stop, just presses on, alternating long, slow licks with sucking kisses and the faint hint of teeth into the meat of his buttocks. Felix buries his face into the pillow and _wails_ , unable to keep silent, and in some twisted kind of reward, Carver grips his arse harder and moans into his skin as he probes determinedly at his tight hole. The vibration seems to hum directly through Felix’s balls, and he reaches back with a clumsy hand to curl his fingers in Carver’s hair and pull him in tighter.

“More, love, oh please— _please_ …”

With a final wet, sloppy smack, Carver breaks away and nibbles briefly at his sacrum. “Lube, sweetheart.”

Somehow Felix manages to get his rubbery limbs to cooperate and he pushes the tube back down the bed. Carver strokes his wrist before picking it up, and even that little touch is like the flare of a lightning bug in the dark of a summer night. He shakes and quivers as Carver kneels up between his knees and draws a slick fingertip between his buttocks.

“Talk to me, darling,” he murmurs, stroking Felix’s flank with his free hand. “You good?”

“Sss-s-so good,” Felix stammers. “More.”

“Have you done this before? To yourself?” he asks as he rubs tight circles with his fingertips.

“Y-yes. A few times.” Felix groans and hitches his hips higher, silently begging for more. “Especially after the… the second time we…”

“Mmm. The cybersex.” Carver is smiling again, by the sound of him, and his fingers are patient and controlled as they keep up their rhythm. “Naughty boy, fucking your mattress while I typed those things to you—you knew _exactly_ who I was, didn’t you. Were you thinking of me while you brought yourself off?”

“Of course,” Felix gasps. He can feel himself loosening, the muscles responding to Carver’s gentle pressure, and he bears down against it. Carver’s forefinger slips in just a little. Felix inhales and goes very still.

Carver hums. “Fee? All right?”

“Hnnn. Yes.” His eyes are half-closed, unfocused as he concentrates on the feel of Carver slowly breaching his body. When his finger is fully seated and his knuckles press up hard against his perineum, and lets out a soft cry and turns his face into his upper arm. “It’s good, Carv, I promise.”

“D’you want me to slow down, love?”

“Mm. No.” Felix smiles, and lets his spine uncoil, tension bleeding away under the weight of pleasure. “Go on exactly as you are.”

“Keep talking,” Carver says quietly, easing his finger back and forth as Felix’s body opens for him. “What else were you thinking about?”

“Mnngh. How you would taste. How big you would be on my tongue, and how… how patient you would be, teaching me to take it.” He almost chokes on his own words, embarrassed, but he can feel Carver’s erection pressing into his thigh through his briefs, and it peels away his uncertainty in one long, clear moment of trust. “I imagined you fucking me, hard, slow, laying over me and pressing me into the mattress—not enough to frighten me, but enough to make me feel safe. Wanted. _Ohhh_ …”

Two fingers, now, freshly slicked with lube and moving patiently against the resistance of his body. Carver shudders behind him and frots against his thigh, the fabric moist where he’s leaking through it. “Fee, sweetheart, _oh_. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Carver.” Overcome, he wraps his arms around the pillow and holds it close, rocking back into every stroke of Carver’s wrist. Sparks of pleasure sizzle down his spine with every pass against his prostate, and his breath hitches in his chest. “Carver, please…”

“I want to look at you,” Carver rasps. “Please. Will you turn over for me, baby?”

“Yeah. Maker, yeah, I want to see you, too.”

Shaking, helped along by Carver’s sturdy hands, he rolls over onto his back. His knees fall open of their own accord, and his cock lays thick and red against his belly. Carver finds his hole again and massages gently before slipping back inside. He seems to tower over him from this angle, up his knees between Felix’s thighs, his own prick jutting away from his body and his face and chest pink—his fiery blue eyes are dark as navy velvet, and he stares down at Felix without shame, fingers sliding in and out of his body with tortuous patience. He licks his lips and Felix shivers. “Pass me the lube again, sweetheart. Are you ready for three?

“Mmhmm.” He does as he’s asked, and he sighs as Carver slides back into him, his body warm and supple against the intrusion. “Feels so good.”

Carver shudders. “I—I have condoms, if you want—I’m clean, too, but if you’d rather not make a mess…”

Felix huffs and arches into him, relishing the ache as Carver’s knuckles brush his perineum. “I don’t know if you noticed, earlier, but I quite enjoy making messes.”

Carver’s eyes are nearly black with arousal as he leans down to whisper against his mouth, “Oh, I noticed.”

They kiss for long moments, the pace matched to the slide of Carver’s fingers in his body, and finally Felix drops his head back onto the pillow and gasps, “I’m ready.”

“You sure?”

“Mmmm, yes. I… need to feel you now. Please.”

He’s empty and bereft for only a moment, and then he feels the blunt head of Carver’s prick nudging at his entrance. Carver thumbs his lower lip with his free hand, smiling breathlessly. “You’re so gorgeous, Fee. Take a deep breath and bear down for me, love, just like I told you before.”

The memory is still fresh in his mind: sweaty and tangled in his sheets, one hand gripped tight around his phone, the other probing low between his legs, fingering himself for the first time while Carver talked him through it. He shudders and obeys, and it feels like his body is nothing but a vessel, swallowing Carver inch by agonizingly slow inch until he’s full seated.

“Yyyeaahhhhhh,” Felix groans, head tipped back into the pillow. “Ohhh baby, it feels so good.”

“Yeah?” Carver whispers. His hand is gentle and warm on Felix’s arched belly, his hips shifting but not really thrusting, not yet. “You like that, sweetheart?”

“Nngh. Mmh, fuck.” Felix grips the sheets so hard he’s sure his knuckles are turning while and spreads his thighs wider, aching and burning, feeling every delicious inch of Carver deep inside his body. A gasp punches out of him as Carver makes a gentle back-and-forth motion with his hips, follows by a short, breathy laugh. “Maker, I’m—you’re not even moving and I, I can’t, it feels _so_ _nice_ …”

“You feel really nice, too.” There’s a smile in his voice, but Felix doesn’t dare open his eyes to see it. He’s afraid that one look at Carver’s face, soft and fond and flushed with need, will be enough to put him over the edge. And he doesn’t want that—not yet. “Fee, baby, you okay if I move now?”

“Yes,” he breathes. Needing more to ground him, he reaches out blindly and finds Carver’s hand ready to meet him, fingers tangling together and clasping tight. “Hold me, please.”

“I’ve got you, Fee. I’ve got you.”

With unutterable slowness, Carver drags out a few inches and back in again, deep, short thrusts that melt through him like hot oil. Felix hooks his free hand beneath his thigh to pull it wider, and hisses when Carver sinks just a little bit deeper on the next pass. He hums, painting broad strokes with his palm on Felix’s chest. “Can I shift a bit, love?”

Felix nods assent, and Carver takes hold of his ankles, carefully maneuvering him so that his thighs are pushed back against his chest and his calves drape over Carver’ shoulders.

“Is this okay? Still feeling good?”

“Yeah.” Felix smiles, and then he can’t help it—he opens his eyes, and Carver meets them with such a saturated look of relief that it almost brings tears to his eyes. “You can move, now.”

So he does. Slow, at first, then picking up the pace with longer strokes that push Felix deeper into the mattress with every pass. The angle is delicious, but his thighs begin to burn after a while, so they shift—with much giggling and gasping and lingering touches—until they’re on their sides, Carver the big spoon with Felix curled in front. It’s a little harder for Carver to hit his prostate reliably this way, but it doesn’t matter. He fills Felix so beautifully, kissing the nape of his neck and playing with his nipples, that he’s more than half-mad with want in only a few minutes.

The build is gradual. Felix grips the sheets and moans with increasing frequency and volume as Carver fucks him, whimpering as he nips his throat. His neck will likely be a rainbow of colorful bruises in an hour or two, but he doesn’t care. He grits his teeth and groans, shoving back so that every thrust is met with a slap of skin on skin, the mattress creaking softly and Carver’s huffs of exertion hot and sweet against his ear, and suddenly he’s there.

“Fuck,” he gasps aloud, eyes flying open. He curls a fist around his cock belatedly, half stroking, half cradling the leaking head. “Fuck, Carver, oh _Maker_ I’m gonna cum…”

Carver groans and picks up the pace, slapping his hips forward until every stroke lights sparks behind Felix’s eyelids. “Yeah, sweetheart, that’s right. I want you to cum, I want to hear you, let me hear how good I make you feel.”

He’s so close. He works his foreskin over the head in quick, circular motions, his breath coming heavy and his throat dry, and looks down. His chest and belly are flushed a deep red, nipples standing out against the sheets and body quivering with every thrust. He worries only fleetingly about the mess, and then it’s too late. His cock spits out thick strands of white onto his fist and the bedding, and this orgasm feels different somehow—deeper and more intense, rolling through his entire body like a summer storm. He pushes his face into the pillow and shouts, broken and guttural, as the last paroxysms take him half out of his mind.

Flooded with endorphins, he’s scarcely aware of Carver growling out his own release into his shoulder. He slumps, and then he feels it, Carver’s body rock-hard and shivering against his, Carver’s fingers digging hard enough into his hip to leave bruises. Marks he’ll cherish when he feels them under his clothes, when he moves and feels the lingering evidence of Carver’s claim on him. He shudders and rolls his hips back. Sensitive as he is, Carver’s cock still feels marvelous inside him, stretching his body to just this side of too much.

“Baby,” Carver mumbles eventually. “I’m gonna pull out, okay?”

“’Kay,” Felix slurs. It’s a bit uncomfortable, but bearable, and Carver pets his arse gently before rolling away to grab something off the floor—an undershirt, he realizes, when Carver rolls him onto his back to wipe his cum away. He tips his chin up for a kiss and receives it, soft and clinging.

He drifts for a bit, and so does Carver, he thinks. They’re almost too hot now, but they lay close, Felix’s leg over Carver’s knee and Carver’s hand tracing idle patterns onto Felix’s hipbone. When he feels a little more human, he turns and crawls half into Carver’s lap and just drapes himself there like a well-fed cat. Carver nuzzles the sweaty crook of his neck, humming. “How long can you stay?”

As if on cue, Felix's stomach burbles hungrily. “Er… can I stay for supper?”

Carver giggles and strokes the back of his neck. “Can you stay forever?”

They both freeze in tandem as the weight of the offer suddenly becomes apparent. Felix lifts his head to look at him, and Carver looks back, dazzling blue eyes wide but unwavering. “Do you mean that?”

To his credit, he hesitates a moment as if thinking about it before nodding. “Yes. Is that… all right.”

Felix swallows, suddenly aware of the real-life implications of everything that’s just occurred. This isn’t an online fantasy world anymore—this is real. Time to start being an adult. Sort of. “Can we maybe start with dinner?”

“Of course,” Carver stammers, his flush rapidly returning. Such lovely pale skin he has, Felix muses with the small part of his brain that insists on being distracted by Carver’s beauty. “I'm sorry, that was…”

“Wonderful. It was wonderful.” Felix shifts in bed, turning to straddle his lap and cup his face between his hands. “Listen to me. I would like nothing more than to move in with you right this second. Believe me. But explaining all this to my father is going to be hard enough without adding that to the mix.”

Carver grimaces. “Right. Of course. Sorry.”

Felix smiles, ducking his head to brush their noses together. “Nothing to be sorry for.” He kisses him, so gently he can barely feel the texture of Carver’s lips. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Carver whispers back, a little shakily. “Stay the night?”

Felix smiles. “Of course.”

Real life can wait until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one day/chapter to go! thanks so much to everybody who's commented and kudos'ed, it means a lot to me!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we've made it! this was definitely new territory for me, it's the fastest 40k I've ever written, and I owe it all to you guys--the awesome comments, the tumblr messages, and especially earlgreyer's eternal patience with my ramblings and panicked plotting rants. Thanks so much for the fun ride, and I hope you have a happy holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. <3

Felix wakes up utterly drenched in soporific heat. His toes are warm—a rarity in Kirkwall at this time of year—and there’s a strong arm looped around his waist, over which a pile of blankets enfolds him from the slight chill of the room. He shifts, and his back finds a firm chest, bare and lightly dusted with hair. The chest rumbles. At the nape of his neck, a nose burrows close, followed by the rasp of a scratchy kiss.

“Morning.”

“Mmmm.” He burrows back into Carver’s arms and sighs happily. “Happy Satinalia.” 

Fear strikes him suddenly like a bolt of lightning. He flies upright, wild-eyed, and grabs at the covers. “It’s Satinalia. Oh fuck.” 

“Mngh.” Carver rolls onto his back and rubs his eyes, bleary and loose-limbed as a new puppy. “What?”

Felix is already scrambling out of bed to hunt down his phone. He bends over to plumb the pockets of his jeans and pauses, feeling an unfamiliar twinge. “Oh. That’s new.”

“Fee, what in the Maker’s name are you on about?”

“It’s—oh fuck—eight-thirty in the morning and we have brunch with your family at nine, my dad’s been calling and texting, _dammit_ , and I am _definitely_ feeling everything we did last night.” 

Carver is coming more and more awake with every word, and by the time Felix finishes he’s coherent enough to reach out and snag him by the waistband of his briefs, coaxing him down to sit on the edge of the bed. “Hey. Easy, love, no need to panic. One thing at a time.” He kisses Felix’s shoulder and pulls the faux fur blanket up around his shoulders like a cloak. “Call your father, say you stayed overnight with a friend because it got late, you’ll be there in time and not to wait or worry.” 

Felix takes a deep breath. “Yes, all right. Hang on.” He skims through the texts and gets the general gist—where in the Void _are_ you—before dialing. 

“Felix! What—”

“I’m fine, Dad, sorry. I overslept and my phone was out of hearing range.”

“But where—”

“I’m at Carver’s place. We got to talking last night and it ran late so I just kipped on the couch.” He holds his breath, fingers crossed against his thigh. 

“Carver _Hawke_?”

“Yes. We’re friends now, remember?”

From the other end comes a loaded, prickly silence. Carver’s hand rubs gentle circles on his back and he takes a fortifying breath. 

“Go ahead and leave without me, I’ll just ride over with Carv. Okay? See you soon, Dad.” 

“All right,” comes the disgruntled reply. Felix tosses the phone to the foot of the bed and puts his head in his hands. Unfortunately, the position reminds him quite forcefully of the lingering ache in his backside, and he groans into his palms. “Oh, Maker.”

“Babe?” Carver says quietly. The endearment sends a shiver down his spine. “All right?”

“Yeah.” He exhales long and slowly. “I’m just… a little overwhelmed, I guess.” 

“Can I help?” 

“Hold me?” Felix murmurs, a little bit embarrassed. But Carver rearranges himself immediately, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pulling him in against his chest. Felix tucks his head under his chin and sighs. “I wish this morning could last just a little while longer. I’m not ready to leave it yet.” 

“We don’t have to go for a little while. C’mere.” He lays back down in the middle of the bed, covers flipped back. When Felix crawls in next to him, he tugs them up again and cradles Felix in his arms, warm and solid and real. “Ten minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

He pets the top of Felix’s head gently. “You said you’re hurting from last night?” 

“I’m a little sore. Nothing awful, I’m just not used to it.”

He sighs. “I’m sorry. Next time I’ll take better care of you.” 

“Hush, you took excellent care of me. The nature of… the act… is bound to have repercussions.” He takes Carver’s hand and kisses the knuckles, settling in against him. If ten minutes are all he has, he’s going to make the most of them.

///

Ten minutes go by far too quickly. When the time is up, Carver kisses Felix out of his drowsy half-doze and together they dress and take turns in the loo, trying to fix their hair and sponge-bathe away the remnants of last night still clinging to their skin. Carver is lucky enough to only have one blatantly obvious mark, and it’s mostly hidden by the fold of his shirt collar. Felix is less so. Forced to rewear his sweater from the day before, he has to borrow a scarf to hide the love bites peppered all around his neck, and he spends ages fussing over the way it lays until Carver gently takes his hand and tells him he looks more than good enough. 

“Gorgeous, in fact,” he murmurs, kissing the side of his head. “I can barely take my eyes off you.”

“You might have to eventually,” Felix teases, though it’s a weak attempt. “Come on then, let’s go get this over with. No offense to your brother’s cooking.”

“None taken.” Carver squeezes him in a gentle hug and breaks away to run Brinkley around the small patch of yard out front before they go. 

The drive over is short but tense; Carver can practically feel Felix vibrating in the passenger seat, but there’s little he can do about it now. He pulls into Garrett’s driveway, just behind a sleek black Mercedes that likely belongs to Felix’s dad, and turns to face him. “Ready?”

“It hardly matters if I am or not, does it?” Felix murmurs. 

“Hey.” He reaches out and squeezes his knee. “It’s gonna be fine, all right?” He pauses, regarding Felix’s glum face. “I love you.” 

“Hmmm. Sweet talker.” But he’s smiling now, at least, and he laces his fingers through Carver’s for a quick squeeze before they separate to climb out of the car.  

He’s hoping for a moment in front of the door to gather his breath, but they’ve hardly mounted the front steps before it flies open and Garrett’s dog—imaginatively named “Dog”—rockets out, bounding eagerly around their legs and whining with excitement. Unused to such boisterous animals, Felix shies away, leaving Carver to corral the massive animal and herd him back inside with encouraging clucking sounds.

“Dog!” Garrett says, materializing in the doorway. “Get in here, go lie down on your mat. You know you’re not supposed to be rude to guests.”

“Technically I’m not a guest, I don’t think,” Carver says, rubbing the back of his neck under his brother’s inquisitive stare. He suddenly hopes that Garrett doesn’t say anything about he and Felix arriving together—he hadn’t even thought to be concerned. “I’m just family.”

“Well, Felix is a guest, then,” Garrett says graciously, waving them both inside. “He can usually smell the difference between ‘Hawke’ and ‘not-Hawke.’”

Carver cringes, thinking of the night Felix spent in his bed. To Dog, he probably smells _exactly_ like ‘Hawke.’ “Or maybe you’re just shit at training your dog,” he says to cover his hesitation. He shrugs out of his coat as the door falls shut behind them, hoping his collar is doing its job and covering the hickey on his neck. 

“Well, welcome either way, both of you. Felix, let me take your coat.”

“There you are.” Gereon comes around the corner with an expression so terrifyingly polite that Carver knows he’s feeling decidedly _not_. “I was almost afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

“We’re fashionably late,” Felix says in that same smooth tone—the tone that says _nothing to see here, we’re not fighting_. Carver exchanges a glance with Garrett, and a small flare of his brother’s nostrils indicates understanding.

“The best way to arrive anywhere, in my opinion,” Garrett says, but no one is paying him any attention.

“Had a productive evening, did you?” Gereon inquires frostily. 

“We weren’t working, Dad,” Felix says with exasperation, the tips of his ears turning faintly pink. “We were spending time together. As friends. Not everything is about work, you know.”

“Hmm. Yes, so I see.” 

Garrett clears his throat noisily and tries again. “Well, you’re here now! What can I get you? Wine? Ale? Fenris has picked out a wonderful red—wine, not ale. Obviously.”

“Ale for me,” Carver says quietly, letting his hand brush subtly at the back of Felix’s jacket. 

“Wine, please,” Felix says in clipped tones. “Could you point me toward the loo?”

“Sure. Just down the hall, on the left.”

Prickling with irritation, Carver shrugs out of his coat slowly and hangs it up in the front hall, working his neck side to side to crack it—and, incidentally, to show off the livid purple bruise sitting just under his collar. Gereon turns a worrying shade of red and excuses himself to the sitting room. 

“Well.” Garrett stares at him, brows lifted high. “That was… interesting.”

A thousand angry words bubble up, and he bites them back so fiercely his teeth ache. Maybe he should take a moment outside and let the cold air work its way through his rising temper. “Of all the self-righteous, entitled...”

“Carv.” Garrett seizes his arm and holds tight. “Take it easy. He’s a guest.”

“Yeah, well, so is Felix. He didn’t have to embarrass his own son like that, did he?”

“To be fair, it was sort of… unexpected. The whole…” He waves his hand to encompass all of Carver. “Did you really think you could get away with the ‘just friends’ schtick looking like that?”

“I hoped,” Carver says glumly. “I guess that was stupid of me.”

“I mean, Bethy told me literally everything, so I was kind of expecting it, but I’m half afraid poor Alexius is about to have a heart attack in the middle of our brunch.” 

Carver sighs gustily. “When’s food?”

“Half an hour or so. You have time.” He waves him on down the hall. “I’ll get your drinks sorted, you go find lover boy and do damage control. Everything’s gonna be fine.” 

The loo is deserted when Carver gets there, so presses onward in search of Felix. Eventually he finds him in the kitchen, bowed over the counter with his hands pressed into white-knuckled fists against the marble top.  He knocks hesitantly on the doorframe. “Fee? Everything all right?”

“Carver.” He straights up, face a curious mixture of regret and relief. “I’m so sorry about my father. If I’d known one little text would make this so difficult...”

“What do you mean?” He drifts closer, and Felix, thankfully, gravitates right into his arms. He feels much better for having him there. “Did he say something to you?”

“You mean his unsubtle outburst wasn’t enough? No, he didn’t say anything more to me, but you heard what he said—it’s obvious he doesn’t approve. And it’s my fault.” 

“I’m sure it’s not,” Carver begins, but Felix is already shaking his head. 

“When you first started working at AAC, it was... difficult. For both of us. I may have conveyed this to my father. He wanted to fire you,” he admits, wincing, “but I convinced him to give you another chance.”

“You did?” Carver asks, heart softening with overwhelming affection. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did. I let your words hurt me, when I should have looked past them to see the root of your own hurt. I couldn’t let him break the contract that first day. One week. That was my mental marker. If things didn’t improve after one week, I would reconsider.”

“And you didn’t.”

“I didn’t have to. By the end of the first week I had you saying ‘thank you’ for the coffee and not actively trying to antagonize me at every turn. Quite an improvement.”

“You’re teasing me,” Carver grumbles, smoothing this thumb across Felix’s cheek. 

“Maybe a little.” Felix turns into his hand and kisses the palm sweetly. “The fact remains, though, that now he’s determined to hate you no matter what. He’s... very protective of me.”

“As well he should be. You’re worth being protective of.” 

“I am, in fact, an adult capable of taking care of myself,” Felix points out dryly, but he doesn’t seem to mind Carver’s clinging hand on his cheek or at the dip of his spine. 

“I know. But this is my fault too, in part. If I hadn’t been such an asshole to you in the beginning, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“Carv—”

“No, let me finish. I’m going to win your father over, okay? I’m going to make this right, whatever it takes.”

“We,” Felix corrects gently, smoothing his hands over Carver’s lapels. “ _We’ll_ do whatever it takes. We’re in this together now.”

Carver smiles and covers his hands with his own. “Right.” 

Felix leans up briefly to buss their lips together. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” Carver answers without a trace of hesitation. 

Felix looks like he wants to kiss him senseless, but he’s interrupted by a gentle throat-clearing from the kitchen doorway. They step apart in unison, the back of Carver’s neck burning with embarrassment. Of all the things for him to overhear...

“Hello, Dad,” Felix says, carefully neutral. “Can we help you?”

Gereon looks between them briefly before settling his eyes on his son. “May I have a word alone with Carver?”

“Dad...”

“I promise I’ll be gentle,” Gereon says, smiling faintly. 

Carver touches the small of Felix’s back in reassurance. “It’s fine, Fee.”

“If you’re sure.” Pinched with apprehension, Felix rises on his toes and kisses Carver’s cheek before leaving the room. 

Left alone, Carver folds his arms across his chest and waits. Gereon clears his throat. “I’ll make this brief. I won’t pretend to understand the change in you, Serrah Hawke, but from what I have seen this morning I believe it to be genuine. I won’t apologize for being protective of my son, but I will give you my blessing to pursue him, if you swear on your own life that you will do nothing to hurt him, if it is in your power.”  

“Done,” Carver says immediately. “But why the change of heart? If I may ask.”

“Because my son is too much like his mother, Maker rest her. Stubborn to the end. Like her, once he sets his mind to something he will pursue it with the utmost dedication, regardless of the opinions of others. And, as with her, I have learned to bend my own pride enough to accommodate him, lest our differences of opinion do damage to our relationship. Do not become one of those differences, Carver.”

“I will do my utmost not to. Sir.”

“That’s all I can ask.” After a moment of hesitation, he crosses the floor and holds out his hand. “Truce?”

“Truce.” 

They shake, perhaps a little overly firm and with a lot of direct eye contact. Then Carver’s phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s from Felix. _If you’re both quite done being macho, I would very much like to kiss you now._ He snorts and puts his phone away. 

“Eavesdropper,” he calls. 

Felix pokes his head around the door. “Dad started it.” 

Gereon shakes his head. “I’ll leave you be, then.” He departs, resting a hand briefly on his son’s shoulder as he goes. When they’re alone again, Felix tugs Carver in by the front of his shirt and kisses him soundly. 

“You’re fantastic.”

“Thanks,” Carver says, bemused. He slides a hand into Felix’s short hair and kisses him again, deep and wet, until the sound of Bethy’s bright laughter from the other room breaks them apart. “We should probablyjoin the party.” 

“I suppose.” Felix pouts, but allows Carver to take his hand and lead him back to the living room. When they arrive, Beth is perched on Isabela’s lap, recounting some anecdote from her time in Orlais while Fenris makes the rounds, refilling everyone’s wine glasses. Bethy catches sight of them and claps her hands. 

“Oh good, you’re here! I was just about to make an announcement.” She accepts a top-off from Fen and lifts her glass. “After a lot of thought I’ve decided to decline the job offer from the University of Orlais. When the rest of the tune study course is done, I’ll move back to Kirkwall permanently and start teaching in the fall.” 

There’s a round of applause and cheers, mainly from Garrett and Isabela. Carver’s reaction is quieter, but equally fervent—a wide smile directed across the room at his sister, and a tight squeeze of Felix’s hand as a wave of relief crashes over him. When the ruckus dies down, Bethy clears her throat. 

“So, a toast. To family, to our roots, and to new connections forged in unexpected places.” She lifts her glass, eyes on Carver, and he does the same before taking a long, satisfying draught. At his side, Felix slips his arm around his waist and pulls tight. 

Now there’s a sentiment he’s happy to toast. 

 

fin.


End file.
